Beatles News
Much to my embarrassment — but also secret delight — it was thanks to my mother that I dated a Beatle at 17.
The occasion was a big charity night for the Red Cross and I had been invited — with my parents, of course — to go down to the house of actor Richard Todd (of The Dam Busters fame) in Henley, Oxfordshire, where he was hosting a reception party.
It was one of those old-fashioned charity events where film stars and celebrities turn up to attend a premiere or a first night and raise money for a good cause.
On this occasion my mother decided that her daughter needed an escort — and that my escort should be George Harrison.
I nearly choked on my tea when she said she'd fix it. 'What?! Are you serious?' I gasped. 'You can't just call George Harrison up out of the blue and say: "Hey, George, do you wanna take my daughter out!"'
Source: Hayley Mills/dailymail.co.uk
This week, as Billie Eilish rules the Billboard 200 once again with her sophomore set Happier Than Ever and Nas scores another top 10 title with his just-released effort King’s Disease II, one legendary musician finds himself back inside the highest tier on the tally long after his passing. Former Beatles member George Harrison returns to the top 10 on the all-genre ranking with his solo release All Things Must Pass, which reappears at No. 7. The set was re-released to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary, and fans rushed to buy it on any of the many formats that were made available. The collector’s item has become a special win for the late superstar, and its success after so many years shows just how popular the musician remains to this day.
Source: Hugh McIntyre/forbes.com
This could be the chance of a lifetime for a Liverpool actor to play one of the Fab Four on screen.
Casting company, Dan Hubbard Casting, is on the lookout for an actor aged 19 to 25 to play Ringo Starr in the new film Midas Man.
Midas Man is the first feature film to tell the story of the life and career of Beatles manager Brian Epstein.
Directed by Jonas Åkerlund, the film will explore Epstein's role in the 1960s cultural revolution as well as his influence on pop music across the globe.
Anyone hoping to apply to the role of Ringo Starr will need to be from Liverpool or "able to do the accent very well."
If you're able to play the drums this could give you an advantage over other applicants, with actors being asked to specify if they have any drumming experience.
Source: Charlotte Hadfield/liverpoolecho.co.uk
Every rock band has its die-hard fans, but few fans could match the fervor, excitement and utter devotion that Chicago’s Beatles worshippers showed when the band arrived for a Comiskey Park concert in 1965.
Just one year earlier, Beatlemania arrived in the U.S. in February 1964 when the Fab Four — John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison — performed on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” More than 73 million people across more than 23 million households tuned into the show, according to Mark Lewisohn, author of “The Complete Beatles Chronicle: The Definitive Day-By-Day Guide To the Beatles’ Entire Career.”
Whatever it was about the band — the music, that long hair, the accents — teenagers, especially girls, became obsessed with the lads from Liverpool.
Source: Alison Martin/chicago.suntimes.com
Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney made some of the most well-known songs in rock ‘n’ roll history; however, Dylan feels his songs are very different from McCartney’s. In the same vein, Dylan said he can’t perform songs the way McCartney does. Dylan said McCartney is less like himself and more like other famous musicians from the 1960s and 1970s.During an interview with the HuffPost, Bill Flanagan asked Dylan why he doesn’t play his songs the same way all the time like other acts from his generation. “I couldn’t if I tried,” Dylan said. “Those guys you are talking about all had conspicuous hits. They started out anti-establishment and now they are in charge of the world. Celebratory songs. Music for the grand dinner party. Mainstream stuff that played into the culture on a pervasive level.”
Source: cheatsheet.com
Paul McCartney was watching TV, saw a trumpeter playing a Bach Brandenburg Concerto on screen, and next minute invited him to play on one of the Beatles’ biggest hits.
Picture this. Paul McCartney, watching TV in a most ordinary scene, and happening across footage of the English orchestral trumpeter David Mason performing a Bach Brandenburg Concerto. So inspired, he becomes, that he knows he just must invite him to play on a new Beatles song he’s percolating on.
That’s how the story of the notoriously high piccolo trumpet solo on ‘Penny Lane’ starts.
Vocalist McCartney was looking for something to embellish the jaunty 1967 English pop song, so when he heard Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in the hands of the virtuosic Mason, he’d found just the colour the Fab Four didn’t even know they needed.
Source: Rosie Pentreath/classicfm.com
Beatles fans are started to speculate what the expanded ‘Let It Be’ box set may look like when it is released in October.The Beatles’ ‘Let It Be’ secret was leaked last week after former Apple Records box Tony Bramwell blabbed on social media about a 5-disc box set coming on 15 October. That was spotted by Beatle vlogger Caitlyn Larkin who put the news out to Beatles fans via her YouTube channel before Bramwell deleted his post.The expanded ‘Let It Be’ is expected to be released ahead of the Peter Jackson ‘Get Back’ movie, Jackson’s remake of the 1970 ‘Let It Be’ film. The original film was made by Michael Lindsay-Hogg. It was released to cinema, later to VHS and had an occasional broadcast on Free To Air television in the 1980s but have never been released on DVD or Blu-Ray.
Source: noise11.com
Rock star excess hit its peak in the 1980s. It went beyond the bad behavior of throwing televisions out of hotel rooms, or the decadent pleasures of mud sharks and Mandys. The Beatles, who were the biggest band to come out of the rock and roll era, set standards for excess, beating Elvis’s Pink Cadillac tour when they thought about buying their own Greek island. Their success was ensured by their producer, George Martin, who allowed the band to exceed the limits of the EMI studios they created music in. Gracie Otto’s documentary Under the Volcano is the story of how Martin’s post-Beatle career enjoyed greater heights by finding an entirely new level of indulgence. For the second time in his career, the “fifth Beatle” exceeded all expectations about how to produce a sound.
Source: Tony Sokol/denofgeek.com
After spending two years in Germany with John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison, Pete Best was kicked out of The Beatles 59 years ago today on August 16, 1962. After Pete was removed from the band the remaining members of the Fab Four hired Ringo Starr to fill his spot.
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Ringo at the time was performing with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, but was called up by Paul who had an offer he couldn't refuse.
The drummer settled into the band rather quickly, going on to record some songs with them almost as soon as he joined.
Pete, on the other hand, went back to Liverpool.
Source: Callum Crumlish/express.co.uk
Ringo Starr will be dropping a new EP, Change the World, on September 24th via UMe. Like his previously released Zoom In EP from March, the four-song set was recorded at his Roccabella West home studio.
Starr collaborated with several artists and songwriters on the set. Lead single “Let’s Change the World” was written by Toto’s Joseph Williams and Steve Lukather, who also play on the track. “Just that Way” was co-written and performed by Ringo and his longtime engineer Bruce Sugar.
Source: Althea Legaspi/Rolling Stone.com
Beatles Adult T-Shirt: Beatles Revolver Studio Shots (Grey) 