Beatles News
In a special episode of "Everything Fab Four," host Kenneth Womack (a music scholar who writes about pop music for Salon) is joined by Greg Harris and Nwaka Onwusa from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame to discuss the magic of the Hall's new "The Beatles: Get Back to Let It Be" exhibit. "Everything Fab Four" is a podcast co-produced by me and Womack, and distributed by Salon. I personally had the pleasure of touring the new exhibit live in Cleveland, Ohio recently.
As Harris, who serves as president and CEO of the Hall, and Onwusa, chief curator and vice president of curatorial affairs, tell Womack, the exhibit had been in the works for a few years but really picked up steam with the release of Peter Jackson's "Get Back" docuseries. "As an historian, I was really blown away by it," says Harris. And as Onwusa adds, "The Beatles have always been a part of the Hall, but it's very special to have this particular moment in time captured."
Source: salon.com
Paul McCartney has urged Starbucks to stop charging extra for plant-based milk.
The former Beatles musician has been vegetarian since 1975 and founded the Meat Free Mondays campaign in 2009 alongside his daughters, Mary and Stella. He’s also worked with PETA on various projects throughout his career.
As Billboard reports, McCartney has now written a letter to Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson ahead of his upcoming show in Seattle, Washington – where the global coffee company is based.
The singer-songwriter is calling on Johnson to end the surcharge on Starbucks’ plant-based milk options before he retires from the company on Monday (April 4).
“It recently came to my attention that Starbucks in the USA has an extra charge for plant based milks as opposed to cow’s milk,” McCartney began.
Source: By Tom Skinner/nme.com
Julian Lennon is gearing up to release his seventh studio album, and it's one that's near and dear to his heart. John Lennon's son decided to name his new project JUDE, which in an homage to "Hey Jude" — The Beatles song Paul McCartney wrote to comfort 5-year-old Julian when his parents separated. The song, of course, became one the band's biggest hits and is still a fan-favorite at McCartney shows.
The singer-songwriter has a love/hate relationship with the track because on one hand, it reminds him of an unhappy time in his life, and on the other, he's grateful for the support McCartney showed through his lyrics. With time, "Hey Jude" became part of his personal identity.
Source: iheart.com
Paul McCartney has admitted he still hasn’t planned his forthcoming Glastonbury headline set.
The former Beatle was recently confirmed along with Kendrick Lamar as the final headliners at this year’s bash, joining Billie Eilish who was previously announced in topping the bill on the Pyramid Stage.
When asked what he’s got planned for this year’s event, which will run at Worthy Farm between June 22-26, McCartney told Metro Radio: “Yeah, to tell you the truth we don’t know exactly what we’re going to do yet, but we are definitely planning on having a few tricks up our sleeve…”
Source: By Damian Jones/nme.com
Dave Grohl has been melting faces since the late 1980s, first with Nirvana and then with Foo Fighters. However, by 2002, Grohl still hadn’t quite met everyone there was to meet in the industry, including George Harrison‘s son, Dhani Harrison.
Grohl had no idea who Dhani was when they first met. It’s an excusable offense. Dhani might have looked like a carbon copy of his father, but he’d yet to find his own fame.
Thankfully, Grohl quickly realized who he was talking to; otherwise, the surprise of his life might not have come.
Source: cheatsheet.com
With writers of the calibre of John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison, it's no surprise that the number of covers of Beatles songs runs into the thousands. Inevitably, not all of these are going to be classics. Cheap rip-offs and soulless pop interpretations abound, but possibly more numerous are those covers which, understandably, fail to do justice to the originals.
It's arguable that it is the range of Beatles material, as much as the quality, which accounts for why so many artists and bands from such a wide variety of backgrounds have been drawn to their work. Rock, pop, psychedelia and the avant garde all feature in The Beatles' playbook. A good song is a good song, however, and can always be transposed to new setting with positive results.
Source: whatculture.com
Beatles superfans will surely recognize this iconic 1964 photo capturing music’s most famous quartet fishing from a guestroom of the Edgewater hotel in Seattle, where the band members stayed during their first global tour.
Like the rest of the world, Seattle was so overwhelmed by “Beatlemania” that the Edgewater was the only hotel willing and able to host the band, installing cyclone fencing around its perimeter to keep crazed fans at a safe distance. (Legend has it, some superfans even attempted to swim across the chilly waters of the Bay in the hopes of getting a glimpse of the Brits.) During their stay, now-iconic images were captured of young and playful John, Paul, George, and Ringo hanging fishing poles out the windows of their hotel suite into the waters of Elliott Bay.
Now, nearly 60 years later, the Edgewater is giving Beatles fans the chance to recreate this famous scene with a unique hotel and concert experience timed to the Seattle stop on Paul McCartney's “Got Back” tour this May. The very limited package includes a pre-show dinner, tickets to the concert, luxe round-trip transportation, and a night’s stay in the Edgewater’s Beatles Suite.
Source: Elizabeth Brownfield/forbes.com
Michael Douglas got a shock when he won his first Golden Globe in 1988. However, Douglas got even more of a surprise when music legends George Harrison and Bob Dylan showed up at his hotel room after the awards to help him celebrate his win.
In 1988, Douglas walked away with his first Golden Globe. He won Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama for Oliver Stones’ Wall Street.
Douglas thanked Stone in his acceptance speech for giving him such a great role. He starred as the corporate raider Gordon Gekko, who later mentors Charlie Sheen’s character, Bud Fox.
Douglas also won an Oscar for Best Actor for the role. He went up against William Hurt, who recently died on Mar. 13, Marcello Mastroianni, Robin Williams, and Jack Nicholson.
Source: cheatsheet.com
Tom Hanks wrote a movie partly inspired by Ringo Starr joining The Beatles.
Hanks drew inspiration from another 1960s rock group while writing the film. The movie included a hit song.
Ringo Starr wasn’t always a member of The Beatles. Tom Hanks watched a documentary that discussed Ringo joining the Fab Four and it subsequently inspired him to write a movie. Notably, Hanks started writing the film to keep his mind off how Forrest Gump would perform during awards season.Hanks directed and wrote That Thing You Do!, a comedy about a fictitious one-hit wonder band named The Wonders. At one point in the film, The Wonders have to replace their bassist before a big performance. This part of the film is connected to Ringo.
Source: cheatsheet.com
It doesn’t happen very often in showbiz, but George Harrison and Mick Fleetwood were briefly brothers-in-law. The Fleetwood Mac drummer became George’s brother-in-law when he married Jenny Boyd, the younger sister of George’s wife Pattie Boyd, in 1970.
Although both their marriages ended, the musicians remained friends and bonded over their shared love of tropical climates, Maui, and ukuleles.
The lead guitarist met Pattie while The Beatles filmed A Hard Day’s Night in 1964. He asked her to marry him the first day they met, but they didn’t tie the knot until 1966.
After a turbulent 11-year marriage, George and Pattie officially divorced in 1977. Although, they’d split in 1974 after George cheated on Pattie with Ringo Starr’s wife, Maureen, and Pattie and Eric Clapton revealed they were in love.
Source: cheatsheet.com
