Beatles News
We don't need to remind anyone at this point of how the Beatles revolutionized popular music from the moment their performance on "The Ed Sullivan Show" became the February 1964 equivalent of "breaking the internet" or going viral via TikTok in present times. Over a six-year period that came to an unfortunate end in 1970, the Fab Four reinvented themselves in so many ways but never stopped topping the charts or influencing legions of young people to pick up some musical instruments and start a band.
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Those words, from Don’t Bother Me, a glum kiss-off to an lover, which appeared on The Beatles’ 1963 album With The Beatles, mark George Harrison’s first recorded entry as a songwriter. It wasn’t of any significant artistic weight that would rattle the axis of the golden Lennon/ McCartney team, nor would it hint at the glory and sophistication that would be his masterpiece solo record.
Flash forward more than half a century later, and Harrison’s landmark All Things Must Pass album is not only considered perhaps the greatest solo record by a Beatle, but is also routinely selected in the music press as among the most important rock albums of all time.
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On August 21, 1964, The Beatles played their first concert in Seattle. More than 14,000 screaming fans packed into the Seattle Center Coliseum, including these sisters from Ballard.
“I was 14 when I saw The Beatles, and I’m 72 now,” said Barbara Horn.
“I was 21 when I saw The Beatles, and I will be turning 80 in July,” said Irene Crawford.
Typically, the little sister learns about the cool new bands from their older sibling, but not in this case.
“I didn’t even know who these Beatles were,” said Irene. “But I worked downtown and she’d want me to pick up these magazines for her that had The Beatles on it, at Woolworths. So then I started looking at them and listening and I thought, oh, they’re good.”
Source: RACHEL BELLE KIRO Newsradio/mynorthwest.com
Sir Paul McCartney admitted he has a recurring dream in which the audience at his concert deserts him for the bar when he plays a lesser known song.
The former Beatle, 79, discussed the challenge of choosing his setlists from more than 60 years of music ahead of his Got Back Tour, which began on Thursday April 28 in the US.
Speaking during rehearsals, he said he wanted to include the track Women And Wives, from his 2020 number one album McCartney III, in his upcoming shows but worried fans might switch off.
Source: PA News Agency/centralfifetimes.com
As the Beatles drifted apart towards the end of the 1960s, Let It Be would prove to be the band's final album.
The Fab Four's final number one, The Long and Winding Road, caused further conflict within the outfit as Paul McCartney had major reservations about alterations made to the track. The final album was largely mixed by Phil Spector, with McCartney- no longer on good terms with the rest of the band- remaining scarce.
Spector took issue with the recorded tapes for the track and so decided to mix it with string and choir overdubs. Before the record went to press, Paul received a copy and did not like what he heard.
Source: Aaron Curran/liverpoolecho.co.uk
There are many great guitar moments within the Beatles catalog. We all have our favorites. But as far as Paul McCartney is concerned, one of those highlights happens to be the song “Taxman.”
And for good reason.
In addition to laying down his unforgettable Motown-style bass hooks on the track McCartney contributed a wild electric guitar solo that would make anyone proud.
Source: Tom Mulhern, Rod Brakes/guitarplayer.com
The right combination of variables is needed to achieve a blazing success—one explanation for why there was never a “Kinksmania”Imagine there were no Beatles—or that there was no Beatlemania anyway and that the lads from Liverpool were just another band that never got a record deal or that split up before they hit it big. That is the premise Harvard University professor Cass R. Sunstein ponders in an entertaining and thought-provoking essay to be published in September in the first issue of the Journal of Beatles Studies. (A preliminary draft was posted online early this year.)
The fact that there could be an academic journal devoted just to John, Paul, George and Ringo is emblematic of how popular and influential the Beatles are. Many assume they were destined for greatness. “It was just a matter of time,” said John Lennon in a 1980 interview. But maybe not. Early on, record executives were unimpressed (“The boys won’t go,” they told manager Brian Epstein). And the group did almost split up. Its members were carried along their winding road by an unusually enthusiastic manager (Epstein), a risk-taking producer (George Martin), a big local fan base, and more. “
Source: Lydia Denworth/scientificamerican.com
George Harrison was constantly amazed by Bob Dylan. Everything he did and said, especially how he wrote and recorded music. So, George took to recording Dylan whenever they were together. The ex-Beatle had his own personal Dylan bootlegs.
In a 2002 special edition of Rolling Stone called “Remembering George,” Tom Petty talked about what it was like being in a band with George and Dylan. Along with Jeff Lynne and Roy Orbison, the trio formed The Traveling Wilburys in the late 1980s.
Petty said that George was fascinated by everything Dylan did, so George tended to film him.
“George quoted Bob like people quote Scripture,” Petty said. “Bob really adored George, too. George used to hang over the balcony videoing Bob while Bob wasn’t aware of it. Bob would be sitting at the piano playing, and George would tape it and listen to it all night.”
Source: cheatsheet.com
Paul McCartney felt The Beatles’ “Eight Days a Week” reflected the sexual revolution. John Lennon didn’t like the song and explained the song’s origin. On the other hand, a director associated with The Beatles said John’s memories were incorrect.
Paul McCartney holding a guitar during The Beatles' "Eight Days a Week" era
“Eight Days a Week” includes lyrics like “Hold me, love me.” During a 2015 interview with Billboard, Paul discussed the song. “Our parents had been rather repressed, and we were breaking out of
that mold,” he said.
Paul said The Beatles weren’t the only ones feeling the cultural shift. “Everyone was let off the leash,” he recalled. “Coming down from Liverpool to London, there were all sorts of swinging chicks, and we were red-blooded young men. All that’s on your mind at that age is young women — or it was, in our case.”
Source: cheatsheet.com
Lennon’s lawyer tells the story of his near-forgotten rights battles with mobster Morris Levy
There have been scads of books about The Beatles in general and John Lennon specifically. Paul McCartney carries the Beatles legacy forward, playing stadia across America, dinging nostalgia bells in a live context, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, so does Ringo Starr, with his All-Starr Band tours, where I always think, “C’mon, Ringo, more Beatles, fewer long-ago hits by your B-level rock pals.”
But it’s Lennon–well, those who write about Lennon–who rules the bookshelves. This, obviously, owes to the fact that there was an endpoint to his career, a very bloody endpoint in December 1980 which needs no further exploration here. And the ever-lingering question of “What if?” which hovers around any artist taken away too soon.
Source: Jim Sullivan/bookandfilmglobe.com
