Beatles News
Cops and Krishnas, mad inventors and comic geniuses. The Beatles had gathered a colourful crew around them by 1969, many of whom drop by the ‘Let It Be’ sessions to hang, hustle or play along, thereby ending up in the background of Peter Jackson’s mammoth new documentary The Beatles: Get Back. Here’s a full who’s who of the supporting players (aka anyone who isn’t John, Paul, George or Ringo).
Dennis O’Dell – producer
Producer of the Let It Be film, who loaned The Beatles Twickenham Studios for the duration of January 1969 in order to rehearse and record their planned TV special while preparations were underway for his next movie project The Magic Christian, starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr.
Source: Mark Beaumont/nme.com
Sunday’s on the phone to Monday, but last Tuesday feels like years ago. Thanksgiving weekend was an epic journey for Beatles fans, thanks to Get Back. Peter Jackson’s docuseries finally arrived on Disney+, dropping surprise after surprise on our heads. So much to process. So much to argue about. Any random 10-minute stretch of this movie is crammed with too many quotable quotes and musical details to catch the first few times. Rest assured this isn’t just a one-time bombshell event. Get Back is an instant classic that fans will keep watching and re-watching for years to come.
Source: Rob Sheffield
Yoko Ono didn’t break up the Beatles — so say some Beatles fans after watching a new documentary about the legendary band.
“Get Back,” a three-part documentary series directed by Peter Jackson and airing on Disney+, follows John, Paul, George and Ringo as they make their last album together, 1970’s Let It Be.
Many fans watching the documentary felt the footage shown in the series proves that Yoko Ono was not a meddling, corrosive influence on the Beatles, as she is often characterized, but rather more of a benign presence.
Source: etcanada.com
JOHN LENNON held a meeting with Paul McCartney in 1969 where he spoke about what he didn't like about The Beatles and his regrets from the band's career.
The Beatles' latest documentary, Get Back, hit Disney Plus over the past week and showed off a new side to the Fab Four. Part two of the three-part series included a scene that showed John Lennon pulling Paul McCartney aside to air some grievances he had. They met at a cafeteria away from prying eyes - and cameras - to sort out their problems, and to discuss George Harrison's growing frustrations with the band's songwriting process.
Source: Callum Crumlish/express.co.uk
"The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present" by Paul McCartney (Liveright) is a massive, 960-page memoir and career overview by the Beatle, spanning 154 of his most important songs and the stories of their composition, as well as his life, partnerships, and the people who inspired him.
In the excerpt below, McCartney writes about his Old English sheepdog, Martha, which was an inspiration for his 1968 song "Martha My Dear," from The Beatles' "White Album."
Source: cbsnews.com
The Beatles‘ rooftop concert is one of the most famous concerts in the history of classic rock. During an interview, Paul McCartney revealed the concert was designed to anger a certain type of listener. Notably, The Beatles played “Don’t Let Me Down” during the concert. The song garnered a different reaction at the concert than it did on the pop charts.
The Beatles' Paul McCartney holding a guitar
The Guardian reports several businessmen were in the vicinity of The Beatles when they performed their rooftop concert. One of these businessmen said The Beatles’ concert disrupted his work. Paul compared this man to a character in A Hard Days’ Night who got upset at the Fab Four and commented that he fought in World War II for “your lot.” Ringo Starr retorted “I bet you’re sorry you won!”
Source: cheatsheet.com
Paul McCartney sits in a chair, bass guitar propped on his knees, and plucks out a riff — nothing fancy, not yet, though he can tell he might be onto something. (His years in the world’s biggest rock band have sharpened his instincts.) Slowly — though not so slowly! — a vocal cadence begins to take shape, then a melody, then a lyric about getting back to where you once belonged. McCartney looks over at George Harrison, his band mate in the Beatles, who’s lounging across from him inside a cold London studio in January 1969, and lets his eyes sparkle ever so slightly: He’s just created “Get Back,” which will go on to become a rock classic still beloved by fans half a century later.
Source: Mikael Wood, Randall Roberts, Gustavo Arellano/latimes.com
What exactly happened between George Harrison and the other Beatles that triggered him to quit the band? Peter Jackson's Get Back explores this.
Why did George Harrison leave The Beatles and how is this explored in the new Peter Jackson documentary series The Beatles: Get Back? The Disney+ series premiered on November 25, 2021, and it was a huge hit worldwide. Peter Jackson used old footage shot during the making of The Beatles' 1970 album, Let It Be. This was their last album, and it was recorded during the months leading to their definitive breakup. However, Jackson wanted to reuse the Beatles footage (originally shot by Michael Lindsay-Hogg for his film Let It Be) to create a more upbeat interpretation of The Beatles' last months.
Source: Marta Zabo/screenrant.com
The Beatles took over the world in their heyday. It seemed as though everyone was obsessed with The Beatles, maybe even more so than John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. In one 1967 interview, George Harrison said the band, to him, was “just a hobby.”It didn’t take too long for Harrison to grow accustomed to the life of the rich and famous. And not too long after that, he grew tired of it. In early interviews, one could hear his excitement about his life, or read it on the page. But as time went on, he became jaded. When Harrison was interviewed by Melody Maker in 1967, he said the band hardly worked for their success anymore. Everything came easy.
Source:cheatsheet.com
In light of the recent release of Peter Jackson’s new Disney+ docuseries, The Beatles: Get Back, we’re looking back at some of the great movies and documentaries that came before it highlighting the Fab Four.
Directed by Broadway veteran Julie Taymor (The Lion King), this 2007 rock musical fantasia employs 33 of the Beatles’ most indelible songs to take audiences on a magical mystery tour through the turbulent 1960s. Most of the cult favorite’s character names come from Beatles lyrics: Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood), an upper-class suburban transplant in New York, falls into a star-crossed love affair with Jude (Jim Sturgess), a former Liverpool ship welder. Her brother Max (Joe Anderson) is a rebellious college student who is later drafted. The boundary-breaking film boasts a feast of ecstatic, hallucinatory music sequences, including an Uncle Sam poster coming to animated life, bleeding strawberries—and even Army recruits carrying the Statue of Liberty across a Vietnamese jungle in their underwear.
Source: Christopher Wallenberg/tvinsider.com
