Beatles News
From classic American rockers to British artists to the estates of late legends, here's a look at some of the musicians who have objected to Donald Trump using their songs at campaign events.
JOHN FOGERTY, PHIL COLLINS, BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
Some classic rockers say not only do they oppose Trump using their music, the choice of songs is ironic or downright wrong. John Fogerty, who last week sent the campaign a cease-and-desist letter over the use of “Fortunate Son” by his band Creedence Clearwater Revival, said he was baffled by the use of a song that could have been written to slam Trump. Phil Collins sent the campaign a demand to stop using “In the Air Tonight" after it was played at an Iowa rally this month. Many observers say it was an odd song to choose given that the air among the mostly mask-less people at the rally could have been spreading the coronavirus. And just as he had with Ronald Reagan in 1984, Bruce Springsteen objected in 2016 to Trump blasting “Born in the U.S.A." as a patriotic anthem, when it's actually a scathing indictment of the treatment of Vietnam vets.
Source: clickorlando.com
Grammy-Award winner Steve Lukather, best known as the lead guitarist for Toto, recently joined host Kenneth Womack to talk about the Beatles on "Everything Fab Four," a new podcast co-produced by me and Womack, a music scholar who also writes about pop music for Salon, and distributed by Salon.
Lukather, who has played on over 2,000 rock and pop tracks, talks about how he went from being "shitty at sports" and "bullied as a kid" to finding his soul in music when the Beatles hit "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1964.
"Life went from black-and-white to color," says Lukather. "I was like, I gotta learn how to do that. I [joined] a band when I was nine. I mean, what are the odds of a little kid from West Hollywood seeing the Beatles on 'Ed Sullivan,' then playing on the 50th anniversary of that show?"
Nowadays, having been a member of Ringo Starr's All-Starr Band for years, he counts Ringo as one of his closest friends. "I cherish that relationship probably more than anything at this point," Lukather says. "Ringo's the coolest guy I've ever been friends with — and I have a lot of cool friends."
Source: salon.com
During an appearance on BBC 6 Music, The Beatles legend Paul McCartney talked about the ongoing pandemic, his upcoming new album "McCartney III," and more.
"McCartney III" is due this December, you can check it out here via Amazon.
When the interviewer said, "This is 'McCartney III,' so let's do a bit of context - if this is maybe the third part of the trilogy. 'McCartney I' in 1970 - that was kind of the start of the lo-fi-DIY-play-and-produce-everything-yourself. Have you always had a soft spot for that record?
"Oh, yeah. It happened just because I was spending a bit of time at home because, suddenly, I wasn't in The Beatles anymore.
"So you're a bit of a loose end, to say the least. But I had all my stuff - I had a drum kit, I had my bass, I had my guitar, had an amp, I got hold of a four-track recorder from EMI, which is the same machine that we'd used with The Beatles.
"So I just went real-lo-fi, just plugged the microphone straight into the back - didn't have a mixing desk - and made some music. That was it!"
Source: jomatami/ultimate-guitar.com
Paul McCartney has hailed Peter Jackson’s upcoming documentary Get Back for providing an authentic portrait of The Beatles‘ final years together.
The new film from the Lord Of The Rings director captures the making of the band’s final album, 1970’s ‘Let It Be’, which is set to challenge the popular narrative that the group constantly clashed during their later years.
When asked about his early reactions to the film, McCartney told BBC 6Music’s Matt Everitt: “I love it”.
He also admitted that he originally questioned why Jackson wished to make the film – which draws from material originally captured by director Michael Lindsay-Hogg for his 1970 documentary of the album.
“I said to him [Jackson] when he was going to trawl through all the footage – like about 56 hours or something – I said, ‘Oh God, it’s going to be boring’ because my memory of the [original 1970] film was that it was a very sad time, and it was a little bit downbeat, the film,” he admitted.
Source: Nick Reilly/nme.com
A kitten named after John Lennon when he was found on what would have been The Beatles star's 80th birthday has adopted the role of big brother to a smaller cat called Ringo.
Ginger tabby Lennon was named by RSPCA inspector and Beatles fan Anthony Joynes after he was discovered by students on John Lennon Drive in Liverpool earlier this month.
The frightened cat was taken to the RSPCA Wirral and Chester branch to be cared for, and has since become inseparable from a tiny black and white kitten.
The purring pair became so close staff decided to name the smaller cat after Beatles bandmate and drummer Ringo Starr.
Ringo has been hand-reared by staff since he was rejected by his mother at birth but has found a big brother figure in Lennon.
Source: itv.com
The debate between the Beatles and the Rolling Stones has been going on ever since they first crossed paths on the charts 55 years ago. The argument at the time, and one that still persists, was that the Beatles were a pop group and the Stones were a rock band: the boys next door vs. the bad boys of rock. So who’s better? Tribute bands Abbey Road and Satisfaction engage in an on-stage musical showdown at 8 p.m. Saturday, November 14 at the Greenville Municipal Auditorium (GMA).
Full COVID protocols and socially distanced seating are in place.
Taking the side of the Fab Four is Abbey Road, one of the county’s top Beatles tribute bands. With brilliant musicianship and authentic costumes and gear, Abbey Road plays beloved songs spanning the Beatles’ career. They face off against renowned Stones tribute band Satisfaction - The International Rolling Stones Show, who offer a faithful rendition of the music and style of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and the bad boys of the British Invasion.
“Music fans never had a chance to see the Beatles and the Rolling Stones perform on the same marquee,” said Chris Legrand, who plays “Mick Jagger” in the show.
Source: countylinemagazine.com
The Beatles enjoyed lucrative fame and fortune over the course of their tenure. The band achieved 16 number one singles over their ten years in the charts, kickstarting the legacy of each of their members for decades to come. Perhaps one of the most popular of the Fab Four was John Lennon. Lennon was tragically murdered on December 8, 1980 by Mark David Chapman.
Since then, his life has been celebrated in various forms, including film.
One of the films telling the story of his early life was 2009's Nowhere Boy.
Nowhere Boy starred Aaron Taylor-Johnson playing Lennon, and explored how the musical legend kick-started his journey into showbiz.
The film saw a young Lennon picking up a guitar for the first time, assembling a team of young musicians, and creating the most legendary band of all time.
Source: Callum Crumlish/express.co.uk
One of the biggest magical mysteries of the 1960s for me — as someone who experienced the era not in the moment, but as history — is how much music the marquee acts of the decade made, and the rate at which they made it.
In 1965, for instance, the Beatles released not only the underrated Help!, but also the masterpiece Rubber Soul. That same year, Bob Dylan blew minds by going electric twice with Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited.
Not to be outdone, the Rolling Stones put out three LPs in ’65. Creedence Clearwater Revival matched that number in 1969, and let loose with two more in 1970.
In the modern era, technology has made it much easier to make music and reach fans directly. Your laptop is your home studio, the internet a distribution network. Yet artists rarely release music with anything close to the frequency of those brash baby boomers when pop was coming of age.
Major stars now go years between projects. In the last eight years — more than the entire length of the Beatles' recording career — Rihanna has released only one album, 2016′s Anti, without diminishing her star power one bit.
Source: Dan DeLuca/inquirer.com
When John Lennon and his first wife Cynthia finalized their divorce in 1968, their son Julian had only recently turned five. In photos from that year’s Rock and Roll Circus, you see the young Julian sitting on his father’s lap and taking in an eventful episode of late-’60s London.
After John and Yoko Ono moved to New York in 1971, contact between Julian and his father became much more difficult. Speaking with Spin in ’75, John spoke about how they were getting on, and a recent trip they had made to Disney World.
“What we do is irrelevant,” John told Spin. “It doesn’t really matter. As long as he’s around. Cause I don’t see him that often.” John also pointed to how bright — and how into music — Julian was. “He likes Queen, though I haven’t heard them yet,” he said. “[Julian] turns me on to music.”
When the two Lennons were together, they also did some jamming. If you got a copy of Walls and Bridges (1974), you heard Julian playing drums on the final track. While that informal recording sounds like fun, John had to release another version of the same track on Rock ‘n’ Roll (1975).
Source: entertainment--news.com
Sir Paul McCartney is set to release a new solo album that was recorded spontaneously in nine weeks during the Covid-19 lockdown.
Titled McCartney III, it follows 1970's McCartney I and 1980's McCartney II, both of which were also recorded alone.
"I was just messing around, never suspecting for one second that this was going to be an album," the star told BBC 6 Music's Matt Everitt.
He added that some of the songs had "echoes of the pandemic".
One such track features the lyric: "When the cold days come, we'll wish that we had seized the day."
"That was me reminding myself, and anyone listening, that you've got to grab the good stuff and get on through the pandemic," he said.
Source: bbc.com
