Beatles News
The Beatles only worked together for just over a decade, from around 1960 to around 1970. In that time the Fab Four changed the way music and bands functioned, creating timeless albums and music along the way. Over the course of the last 50 years, a number of documentaries have been produced about the band, and their work.
It has now been announced that a brand new documentary is being produced to tell the story of the iconic recording studio which was used to mix the band’s 11th album, Abbey Road.
The documentary is titled If These Walls Could Sing, and will supposedly tell the “untold secrets” of the iconic location.
Abbey Road Studios is famed for recording one of the most iconic albums of all time, and now its story is going to be told for the first time.
Even more exciting, the feature-length doc is due to be shot by Paul McCartney’s daughter, Mary McCartney.
READ MORE: The Beatles: John Lennon 'terrified' David Bowie when they first met
Source: Callum Crumlish/express.co.uk
Paul McCartney has a musical career that’s spanned more than 60 years, and he’s still producing new music. With that many years of songs to choose from, it’s understandable that he can’t play all of them at every performance. But some fans wish he would dig a little deeper and bring back some old favorites.
They told him so recently, and he explained what’s holding him back.
When you start your music career in an iconic band it’s a pretty tall order to establish a significant solo career later on. But according to NPR, McCartney was up to that challenge.
After spending the ’60s changing the world of music as a member of The Beatles, he didn’t let their breakup in 1970 slow him down. The same year, he released a solo album, McCartney.
He then went on to form a new band, Wings. After several successful years, Wings disbanded in 1980, and he released another self-titled solo album, McCartney II.
Source: cheatsheet.com
"We're still pals," Ringo notes. "We don't hang out with each other a lot. But if we're in the same country, and if we're in the same town, we always have a dinner, and we say hi or he comes over here or I go over to his house."
Starr also says he enjoys getting the chance to perform live with McCartney occasionally.
"I love that, getting up with him," says the 80-year-old drummer. "We did it at the O2 [arena] in England [in 2018]. And then he called me [in 2019] and he said, 'I'm doing Dodger Stadium, if you want to do a few numbers.' 'Sure.' So he picked three numbers, and I got up and went down there."
Adds Ringo, "[I]t's magic for the audience as well as us. I love playing with him. The audience is like, 'Oh, there's two of them! Wow.' It lifts everything, in a joyous way."
Source: wxhc.com
Sir Paul McCartney is one of the most known people on the planet, but for the majority of 2020 it seems that no one can recognize him.
The face mask he wears amid the COVID-19 pandemic is giving him anonymity, and the former Beatle loves it because he can "go anywhere and do anything."
"We love the mask," he told Howard Stern. "I walked into work today wearing a mask, you know, looking at everyone. Looking them right in the eye. 'Hello. You don't know who this is. Do you know who I think I am?'"
While the obscurity is nice, Sir Paul knows that the year has been trying for far too many people.
"Even though it's been probably the most frightening year of our lives … 'cause you know, when there were other big crises like AIDS, the bird flu or SARS or whatever, they tended to happen to other people, but this thing's happening to us, no matter who you are or what you've been doing," he said. "In this most frightening year of our lives, I think we've got to kind of take some lessons from it, like, it's quite good to slow down, it's very good to be with your family, have time for people instead of just rushing around, and to me that was the silver lining."
Source: Mark Gray/wonderwall.com
The Beatles made quite the impact on the music industry in the 1960s. A lowly quartet from Liverpool went on to become the biggest band in the world in just a few years - and it was mostly thanks to their incredibly composed hits that were supremely catchy. One of their most popular albums of all time was 1965’s Help! The album saw the beginning of the band’s transition into timeless pop band, utilising such hits as Help!, Ticket to Ride, and Yesterday. Despite the incredible music on the record, John Lennon famously “hated” one of his own songs.
Side two of the LP featured It’s Only Love, a short soliloquy written and performed by Lennon.
While it certainly isn’t as good as many of the other songs on the album, it is not a dreadful song by any means.
Despite this, in 1980 Lennon told David Sheff that he truly “hated” the track.
During the interview with Playboy at the time, Lennon was keen to condemn the song completely.
Source: Callum Crumlish/express.co.uk
Paul McCartney is remembering a moment he experienced after John Lennon died. "When you go through your grieving," he told me once, "and you just sort of think: 'What if he was here? What might we say?' We might talk about when we met and, being John, he might say: 'Ah, f**k off,' because we were that kind of mates, and I'd say to him, 'No, you f**k off.' It's like when you think of someone who's passed away, you get to see them again."
hat night, he also talked to me about his late mother, Mary. "She died when I was 14," he says. "She was Irish but she was sort of posh-Liverpool. She grew up in the other capital of Ireland, Liverpool."
The place helped inspire Paul to write one of his most controversial compositions, 'Give Ireland Back To The Irish' in 1972. What prompted the song?
"The fact that Bloody Sunday had happened," he says. "That fact, that it came over as our lads - the British troops - killing our mates. It would have been different if it was in the Sudan - you would have been able to remove it to your own imagination - but there, particularly as I am of Liverpool-Irish descent, it was our people killing our people to me."
Source: Barry Egan/independent.ie
COVID is unsparing, as we all know. Now the great Olivia Harrison, beloved and devoted widow of Beatle George Harrison, reports that she is recovering from the virus in a London hospital.
Olivia posted to Instagram today: “Redesigning my hospital room curtain. Unlucky to get covid but on the mend. Gratitude to all the selfless carers.”
Olivia was George’s second wife (after Patti Boyd) and mother of his only child, son Dhani. Olivia and Dhani have been steadfast in preserving George’s legacy. She’s soft spoken, elegant, and up to the task of representing George in the Beatles’ extended family. (Her mother named her for Olivia de Havilland, so that gave her a good start!)
Source: Roger Friedman /showbiz411.com
When The Beatles first came to America, only a few months had passed since the tragic assassination of JFK, and our nation was still in mourning. Their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show – then a Sunday night American instituion – was a well-needed shot of joy for the whole country still in shock. But it was also, famously, a profoundly galvanizing event in the lives of countless musicians who recognized their futures that night.
Tom Petty was one. Before that night, the idea of a self-contained band – writing, singing and playing the songs themselves – had not occurred to him. After that night, it was the only way.
Ann Wilson and Tom Petty are the same age, both born in 1950, so both took that in at that most impressionable age, and both decided then to become rock & rollers for life. And unlike almost all the other kids then making that same decision, they both succeeded. Ann did it with her little sister Nancy. Here she is, from an interview we did back in 2014, on the impact of The Beatles in her life.
Source: americansongwriter.com
The two remaining members of The Beatles may not be recording any new music, but Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr have performed together multiple times over the last few years. There was a set at the 30th annual Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony in 2015, plus a 2018 performance at the O2 in England. Starr recently sat down with The Irish News, and he talked about how much he enjoys playing with his old bandmate.
“I love that, getting up with him,” he said. After their O2 performance, Starr said McCartney called him up to do a few numbers at Dodger Stadium. “And it’s magic for the audience as well as us. I love playing with him.” Starr also talked about that the audience’s reaction to seeing them both on stage. “The audience is like, ‘Oh, there’s two of them! Wow.’ It lifts everything, in a joyous way. So, yeah, I had a great time.”
Source: Wongo Okon/uproxx.com
Quick, name the most avant-garde member of The Beatles. If you said Ringo, you and I should have a serious discussion. Certainly, George Harrison brought Eastern music to the group, so that was unique. And John Lennon did contribute one of the oddest tunes to the official Beatles catalog with “Revolution 9” on The Beatles (White Album). That over-eight-minute cacophony includes random noises, clips from radio shows, babies crying, and so on. It confused some and amused others, but generally became the talk of the music community.
However, in reality, the first band member to toe the cutting edge was Paul McCartney who enlisted his bandmates in what would be called “Carnival of Light.”
In 1967, The Beatles were just beginning sessions for songs, many of which would appear on Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. During a break from recording “Penny Lane,” Paul asked the group to “indulge him for ten minutes.
Source: Will Wills/culturesonar.com
