Beatles News
Paul McCartney continues to champion aspiring musicians, dedicating his time to the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA).
The 82-year-old singer-songwriter — who rose to fame with the Beatles in the 1960s, thanks to their iconic hits including “Help!” and “Come Together” — regularly visits the institution to support graduating students.
David Stark, a colleague at LIPA, attested to McCartney’s motivating commitment.
“For the last 20 years I’ve been involved with LIPA, which Paul is the patron of, and he was instrumental in getting that off the ground in the early 90s,” Stark told The Mirror US. “They have the graduation day every year in July and I give out the SongLink Prizes every year. And Paul’s always there. So he makes a big effort.” McCartney reportedly also dedicates time to teaching and mentoring songwriting students prior to their graduation.
“He’ll sit down with each of them for half an hour or so to talk about their songs. He’s great. He really is,” Stark said. “He makes a big effort and I’m very proud to work with him.”
Source: yahoo.com/Connor McCrory
Ringo Starr has revealed the real story behind his famous catchphrase. The legendary drummer is well known for frequently signing off with the words, “Peace and love.” Many fans have long believed the 84-year-old legend came up with the phrase during the Beatles’ spiritual trip to India in 1968 - but this isn't the case.
Speaking to the Associated Press, Ringo finally set the record straight – and the roots of his mantra lie not in the East, but on the West Coast of America. “It actually came, for me, from San Francisco, where the hippies were,” Starr said. “They were, of course, great peace and lovers, and then it changed. But I found a picture the other day of the four of us [giving the peace sign]... I didn’t invent it, I just picked it up. John was a big proponent of peace and love, and it just came to me.”
Decades later, Ringo admits the message is still important today, saying, “I think it’s important every day — and right now the world is going through a madness. Maybe it’ll help."
The Beatles drummer was flung into the spotlight after joining the Beatles in 1962, and has since faced the highs and lows of fame. He has held onto his optimism since childhood, despite facing some difficult challenges early in life regarding his health.
Source: themirror.com/Ayaan Ali
Few things are more exciting than getting to go on the road with your band, let alone a world tour, but in early June 1964, Beatles drummer Ringo Starr had to wait a little while longer to join in on the fun. Indeed, as exciting as embarking on a tour can be, it can be equally devastating when you find out that circumstances beyond your control will be keeping you from following through with your plans.
Beatlemania was in full swing as the Beatles set off for what would be their first world tour in early June 1964. The band began in Denmark on June 4, and from there, they traveled to the Netherlands, then-British Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, England, Sweden, and back home again to England. It was a massive trek for the Liverpudlian band, lasting from June 4 to August 16. But for the first six performances, they were notably missing a member of the Fab Four: Ringo Starr.
The morning before the Beatles left for Denmark (it’s always the morning before, right?), the drummer fainted during a photoshoot. After team members rushed him to the hospital, doctors diagnosed Starr with acute tonsillitis and pharyngitis. He had a notable fever, and other likely symptoms included a very sore throat, headache, body aches, and a cough. Not exactly the best shape for going on the road—at least, that’s what the doctors thought when they ordered him to rest. He wouldn’t be leaving with the rest of his band, and that was that.
Producer George Martin suggested the band reach out to Jimmie Nicol, a talented session drummer who had recently played on a Beatles cover album called Beatlemania. “I was having a bit of a lie down after lunch when the phone rang,” Nicol later recalled, via BeatlesBible. “It was EMI asking if I could come down to the studio to rehearse with the Beatles. Two hours after I got there, I was told to pack my bags for Denmark.”
Source: americansongwriter.com/Melanie Davis
Years before the Beatles sold hundreds of millions of albums themselves, they were looking for a record deal that would save them from playing racy Hamburg venues, only to be given an uncredited performance opportunity on an album they didn’t even like that much. As the old adage goes, beggars can’t be choosers, right?
The recording process might not have been everything the band dreamed of. Still, it was an interesting precursor to a life they would soon become well-acquainted with: that of an original recording artist. But before that could happen, the lads had to pay their dues.
As is so often the case in the music industry, the Beatles got their start as a backing band, not the original band we know and love today. The group cut their teeth across Europe, performing for hours on end for solo performers, entertaining nightclub attendees into the wee hours of the morning, and other kinds of “jukebox” gigs that make playing music feel like, well, a real job. Countless green performers will “pay their dues” in this way in the hopes that these backing gigs will lead to something bigger for themselves, and the Beatles were no exception.
When solo performer Tony Sheridan needed a backing band to cut a few records in the studio, the Beatles obliged. But once they got there, they quickly realized that this wasn’t the “big break” they had been looking for. As George Harrison recalled in Anthology, “It was a bit disappointing because we’d been hoping to get a record deal ourselves.” Moreover, the band walked into the session with a great deal of confidence. “We thought it would be easy,” John Lennon added. “The Germans had such s***** records. Ours were bound to be better. We did five of our own numbers. But they didn’t like them.”
Source: americansongwriter.com/Melanie Davis
He's known for this three-word mantra.
When the average person hears the name Ringo Starr, a few things might come to mind: The Beatles. Drums. "Yellow Submarine." Thomas and Friends. And, of course, there's always the musician's iconic catchphrase: "Peace and love."
It's long been assumed by many that Starr, 84, came up with his motto after visiting India with the other Beatles — John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison — in 1968. But as he recently told the Associated Press, Starr was actually inspired to coin the phrase after spending time in a particular American city.
“It actually came, for me, from San Francisco, where the hippies were,” Starr said. “They were, of course, great peace and lovers, and then it changed. But I found a picture the other day of the four of us [giving the peace sign]...I didn’t invent it, I just picked it up. Johnwas a big proponent of peace and love, and it just came to me.”
In the years since, however, Starr has come to appreciate the true value of his message, which the world might need to hear now more than ever.
“I think it’s important every day — and right now the world is going through a madness. Maybe it’ll help,” Starr said.
Later in the same interview, the drummer admitted that he's naturally “an optimist, not a pessimist," referencing the challenges of his early life (which included contracting tuberculosis and spending two years in a sanatorium, where he learned to play the drums).
Source: parade.com/Jacqueline Burt Cote
Some Beatles critics were quick to blame the Fab Four for the rise of drug culture, particularly psychedelics and marijuana, in the late 1960s, but George Harrison had a different idea about who was really responsible for the public’s interest in LSD and weed. While it’s true that much of the Beatles’ later work was heavily influenced by this psychedelic drug and the mental and visual revelations they had while taking it, the band didn’t feel it was their obligation to lie about it.
When someone asked about their recreational drug use, they were honest. And as Harrison once argued during a 1971 appearance on the Dick Cavett Show, that was the real problem. George Harrison Says Beatles Weren’t Responsible For Drug Culture
To pin the rise of drug use and counterculture solely on the Beatles would be wholly overestimating their cultural influence as a singular musical group. The Beatles were massive, certainly, but hardly big enough to inform an entire generation of global citizens without any extra help. The Beatles were one thread in a larger tapestry of societal change. They didn’t invent LSD. They were merely one of the thousands of people who started trying it recreationally in the mid-1960s. And even then, this was after the drug had already been present in psychiatric and other scientific circles for decades.
Nevertheless, the Beatles were one of the biggest bands in the world in the mid-1960s. If they said jump, most of their fans would ask, “How high?” Social influence of this size comes with its fair share of downsides, including the fact that critics will often lobby your personal choices against you in the context of other people’s choices. Because the Beatles did LSD, the media tried to blame other people using LSD on them. But as George Harrison argued during a 1971 appearance on the Dick Cavett Show, he and his bandmates simply didn’t believe that to be true.
Source: americansongwriter.com/Melanie Davis
If you’re under 60, you probably heard the line “I read the news today, oh boy” before encountering the song it opens. Even after you discovered the work of the Beatles, it may have taken you some time to understand what, exactly, it was that John Lennon read in the news. The “lucky man who made the grade” and “blew his mind out in a car” turn out to have been inspired by the young Guinness heir Tara Browne, who’d fatally wiped out in his Lotus Elan. The figure of 4,000 holes in the roads of Blackburn came from another page of the same edition of the Daily Mail. These are just two of the memorable images in “A Day in the Life,” which sonically reconstructs the fabric of the nineteen-sixties as the Beatles knew it.
In his new video below, Evan Puschak, better known as the Nerdwriter, calls “A Day in the Life” “arguably the Beatles’ best song.” Critic Ian MacDonald is rather less ambiguous in his book Revolution in the Head: The Beatles’ Records and the Sixties, proclaiming it “their finest single achievement.”
And if any single factor shaped its development, that factor was LSD. “A song about perception — a subject central both to late-period Beatles and the counterculture at large — ‘A Day in the Life’ concerned ‘reality’ only to the extent that this had been revealed by LSD to be largely in the eye of the beholder,” he writes. Lennon may have proven to be the group’s most dedicated enthusiast of that shortcut to enlightenment. It’s worth noting, as Puschak does, that it was Browne who first “turned on” Paul McCartney.
Source: openculture.com/Colin Marshall
The Beatles' split was famously acrimonious and left them on bad terms with one another. Factors including John Lennon's relationship with Yoko Ono, emerging creative differences and a disagreement over the appointment of Allen Klein at their label Apple Records are all cited for the break up of the world's biggest band.
However, it seems the troubles really began during the recording sessions of the band's 1968 record 'The White Album', which were notoriously feisty. Ringo Starr left the band for a period, fed up with the mood, as The Beatles clashed.
About that period of recording, Paul McCartney said: "There was a lot of friction during that album. We were just about to break up, and that was tense in itself". John later added: "The break-up of The Beatles can be heard on that album."
In September 1969, after the band had recorded the majority of what became 'Let it Be' (the 'Get Back' sessions) and 'Abbey Road', John told Paul, George Harrison and Ringo that he wanted a "divorce" from The Beatles. Paul went away to work on his first solo album 'McCartney', believing it was all over for the group.
Paul has said he told his bandmates in advance that he would release 'McCartney' with a press release announcing his departure from The Beatles in April 1970. The Beatles had released 'Let it Be' as a single in March 1970, so the new album was renamed after it and they set a May 1970 release date for that album - following the film's premiere.
But with record label Apple wanting to avoid a clash and Paul not wanting to speak to them due to his disapproval of manager Klein, Ringo went to his home with a letter from himself, John and George asking him to move his release date. Paul and Ringo had a huge row and he threw the drummer out of his house.
Source: liverpoolecho.co.uk/Dan Haygarth
Years before the Beatles sold hundreds of millions of albums themselves, they were looking for a record deal that would save them from playing racy Hamburg venues, only to be given an uncredited performance opportunity on an album they didn’t even like that much. As the old adage goes, beggars can’t be choosers, right?
The recording process might not have been everything the band dreamed of. Still, it was an interesting precursor to a life they would soon become well-acquainted with: that of an original recording artist. But before that could happen, the lads had to pay their dues.
The Beatles’ Uncredited Album Gig From Early Hamburg Days
As is so often the case in the music industry, the Beatles got their start as a backing band, not the original band we know and love today. The group cut their teeth across Europe, performing for hours on end for solo performers, entertaining nightclub attendees into the wee hours of the morning, and other kinds of “jukebox” gigs that make playing music feel like, well, a real job. Countless green performers will “pay their dues” in this way in the hopes that these backing gigs will lead to something bigger for themselves, and the Beatles were no exception.
When solo performer Tony Sheridan needed a backing band to cut a few records in the studio, the Beatles obliged. But once they got there, they quickly realized that this wasn’t the “big break” they had been looking for. As George Harrison recalled in Anthology, “It was a bit disappointing because we’d been hoping to get a record deal ourselves.” Moreover, the band walked into the session with a great deal of confidence. “We thought it would be easy,” John Lennon added. “The Germans had such s***** records. Ours were bound to be better. We did five of our own numbers. But they didn’t like them.”
Instead, the band recorded covers with Sheridan providing lead vocals, including “My Bonnie.” When the time came to list the band on the singles, Bert Kaempfert, the band leader and producer, changed the Beatles’ name to the Beat Brothers. “This is more understandable for the German audience,” Paul McCartney recalled him telling the band. “We went along with it,” he said. “It was a record.”
It Didn’t Take Long For Those Tables To Turn
The Beatles might have left the German recording session with their tail between their legs. But that humility didn’t last long. It would only take a few years for the band—properly billed under their own name—to reach international stardom. What’s more, they managed to do so with their original music. This was still a novelty at a time when most music was written by songwriters, not by the performing artist. When Tony Sheridan first released his records with “the Beat Brothers” as his backing band, even songs where he wasn’t present, like “Ain’t She Sweet” and “Cry For a Shadow,” were still primarily billed to him, not the future Fab Four.
Source: americansongwriter.com/Melanie Davis
One of the world’s largest permanent Beatles collections is moving to downtown St. Pete.
Penny Lane, a not-for-profit museum dedicated to the legacy of the Beatles, will open in 2026 at 146 2nd Street North on the first floor of the Palais Royale office building. The new space will be more than four times the size of the current location and offer a more immersive experience for visitors. Founded in January 2017 by Dr. Robert Entel, a local radiologist, the museum began in a 500-square-foot storefront at 730 Broadway in Dunedin.
Over the past eight years, it has welcomed more than 10,000 visitors per year from around the world. Despite having over 1,500 items in the collection, only about 400 to 500 are currently on display due to space limitations. That will change with the move to a new 2,100-square-foot space in downtown St. Pete.
Penny Lane will occupy 2,100 square feet on the first floor of the Palais Royale office building in downtown ST. Pete
The expanded museum will allow for many never-before-seen pieces to be showcased, including large items like Beatles-themed jukeboxes, pinball machines, and gumball machines that couldn’t fit in the original location.
The new location will be designed and built by Pinellas Park-based Creative Arts Unlimited, which also created the Saigon Blonde bar in downtown St. Pete. It will feature immersive lighting and sound effects that transport visitors back to the Beatles’ Liverpool roots. A timeline of the band’s evolution will guide guests through their journey from the Cavern Club to global superstardom.
Guests will find a wide range of memorabilia, such as autographed guitars, signed documents, Beatles toys, posters, pins, and even strands of the Beatles’ hair. A serape once owned by Ringo Starr is also part of the collection. The museum was co-founded by Colin Bissett, a Liverpool native who went to school with Pete Best’s brother. Best was the Beatles’ original drummer before Ringo Starr joined the band.
Dr. Robert Entel, Founder of Penny Lane, the Ultimate Beatles Museum. Dr. Entel began collecting Beatles memorabilia in 1982. Since then, he has built a one-of-a-kind collection that celebrates the music, fashion, culture, and impact of the Beatles.
“The Beatles weren’t just a band. They were a revolution,” said Entel in a conversation with St. Pete Rising. “They changed the way music was written, recorded, and experienced. We want to preserve that legacy for future generations.”
Source: stpeterising.com
