Beatles News
No innovator gets far without a little help from their friends. It’s well known The Beatles took influence from musical giants who came before them. At the same time, they took influence from contemporaries like the Moody Blues. Here’s how the Moody Blues’ Mike Pinder led John Lennon down the path to create “Strawberry Fields Forever.”It all starts with an instrument called the Mellotron. Firstly, according to the book Electronic and Experimental Music, Harry Chamberlain invented the Mellotron in 1947. The instrument sounds otherworldly to many fans. Subsequently, Mellotrons gained popularity after Streetly Electronics began manufacturing them. Mike Pinder, a member of the Moody Blues, was also a salesman for Streetly Electronics. Predictably, his band started using the Mellotron in their music. In fact, the instrument became central to their album Days of Future Passed.
Source: cheatsheet.com
It was largely business as usual in last week’s Nielsen Music Midyear Report. Streaming is up, traditional album sales are down, vinyl’s heroic resurgence persists, and CDs and digital albums continue their death march into obscurity. Oh, and BTS is still crushing it.
The Korean pop septet’s new album, Map of the Soul: 7, is the bestselling physical album of the year and the only one to sell over 500,000 copies in the United States, more than doubling the sales of runner-up Kenny Chesney. Map of the Soul: 7 is also the ninth-biggest overall album of the year, moving 842,000 equivalent units derived from album sales, track downloads and streams.
Additionally, BTS landed at No. 2 among all pop artists in terms of total consumption, right behind Billie Eilish. In total, the boy band has moved 1.417 million album-equivalent units through the first half of 2020. Only one other group has eclipsed 1 million album units in the U.S., and they’re a group to which BTS often gets compared: The Beatles.
Source: Bryan Rolli/forbes.com
Ringo Starr's role as a glue guy in the Beatles was confirmed once they began solo careers. Long after the group split, his individual sessions drew far-flung former members back together once more.
Along the way, the affable drummer came to dominate the list of Top 25 Partial-Beatles Reunion Songs. Seven tracks come courtesy of Starr's solo projects; he's also a regular presence on tracks with George Harrison, John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
At least half the Beatles are present for many of these tracks, and in several instances three of the four ex-bandmates appear. The most famous are the so-called "Three-tles" reunion songs in the '90s, as the others came together to complete a pair of the late Lennon's songs.
Other notable partial reunions date from just after the group's 1970 breakup through modern-era collaborations as recent as the '10s. Several even include classic-era producer George Martin.
Source: ultimateclassicrock.com
Alan Parsons, the studio engineer and the former producer of Pink Floyd, recalled the times when he worked with The Beatles and revealed that Paul McCartney was a pretty demanding musician on the recent interview he gave to Sweetwater.
Parsons talked about the first years in his career when he began to work as an assistant engineer on the 1969 album ‘Abbey Road‘ and 1970’s ‘Let It Be‘ of The Beatles. He explained that he continued to work with Paul McCartney and got used to his working style, which was tough.
Alan Parsons, who has worked in 1973 with Pink Floyd on ‘The Dark Side of the Moon‘, mentioned the creation process of ‘Abbey Road’ when he got to know McCartney better. He said:
“Well, yes. As a result of working on the ‘Abbey Road’ album, at least half the time they were there making it, but I got to know Paul a bit better.
Source: Dilara Onen/metalheadzone.com
Cynthia Lennon has been deemed as the glue that held The Beatles together in some circles. In others, she's a mere footnote in the life of the legend. In all cases, her and Lennon's relationship has been complicated.
John Lennon's first wife Cynthia, is often overshadowed by his subsequent relationship with Yoko Ono. However, the pair's innocent love story, followed by their complicated lives together, is quite gripping.
Cynthia Lennon, nee Cynthia Powell, was born on September 10, 1939, in Blackpool. Her mother, Lillian, lived in Hoylake on the Wirral peninsula and was evacuated to Blackpool, where she welcomed her daughter.
Source: Jaimie-lee Prince/news.amomama.com
There was hardly anyone who didn’t have an opinion about the Beatles’ breakup. Many felt it happened because John Lennon and Paul McCartney simply couldn’t get along, despite being such a famous songwriting duo. Mick Jagger, who is a famous member of a songwriting duo with Keith Richards, had his own opinions on the subject.Jann S. Wenner interviewed Jagger for Rolling Stone in 1995 and asked Jagger about his musical partnership with Richards. Jagger said having a partner was “essential” even though it sometimes hindered him. He also said one of the benefits of musical partnerships is the way fans seem to be entertained by them. Wenner noted how Jagger and Richard’s partnership lasted while John and Paul’s did not. Wenner then asked Jagger why he felt John and Paul’s partnership failed.
Source: cheatsheet.com
The Beatles were a huge sensation into the ’60s, earning numerous hits, a string of successful albums, and a legion of adoring fans. But at the height of their popularity into 1970, the band broke up.
Fans hoped the group would one day reunite, but it sadly never happened. However, there were some offers on the table. into a recent interview, famed drummer Ringo Starr recalled one particular offer worth $250 million, but he said he and his bandmates decided to turn it down due to a pretty bizarre stipulation.
Ringo Starr had been talking to The Sunday Mirror earlier into July when he mentioned the offer made to him and group members John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison.
According to the drummer, showman Bill Sargent tried to get them back together into 1975 with a deal worth $250 million into today’s dollars. But after learning the opening act would feature a fight between a man and a great white shark, they decided not to go forward with it.
Source: Amanda Carano/celebsyou.com
A sculpture of John Lennon is being proposed for a homecoming tour commemorating the former Beatle in the year he would have turned 80.
The sculptor who made the six-foot bronze statue of Lennon says she would like it to go on public display in the singer’s native Merseyside by 21 September – International Day of Peace.
Laura Lian started sculpting the Lennon statue two years ago. Since its completion, the sculpture has spent most of the time inside the Hard Rock Cafe in London. She wants it to tour all of the boroughs around Merseyside over the next two years. It is currently at the Castle Foundry in Liverpool.
Lian, who has made statues for the former Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone and Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones, said: “With all the trouble in the world about statues …
Source: Henry McDonald/theguardian.com
In the 1960s, if you liked any artist who was popular at the time, there was a Beatles song for you. This is because the Fab Four often took inspiration from their contemporaries. The astute listener can listen to the Beatles and notice nods to everyone from Bob Dylan to Elvis Presley.
Smokey Robinson and the Miracles were one of the biggest soul acts of the era. John Lennon openly admitted to taking influence from Robinson for a Beatles tune. Interestingly, John also said the song was similar to the music of composer Gustav Mahler.
Sadly, because the Beatles wrote so many songs, it’s inevitable some of them would slip through the cracks. “Not a Second Time” doesn’t get nearly as much attention or airplay as other Fab Four songs. This is a shame, as it’s a smooth pastiche of the soul music of the time, particularly the music of Motown.
Source: cheatsheet.com
The past few months have seen several artists covering John Lennon from home in quarantine, most recently with Bille Joe Armstrong’s Generation X–inspired rendition of “Gimme Some Truth.” Johnny Depp and Jeff Beck covered “Isolation,” while the Dirty Projectors offered their own take on the song. Gal Gadot also led a group of celebrities through “Imagine,” which, really, no one needed.
Yet no major artist has covered “How Do You Sleep?” — the late Beatle’s bitter Imagine track aimed at Paul McCartney. Things had grown tense between Lennon and his former bandmate before and after the Beatles’ messy breakup in 1970, and McCartney’s “Too Many People,” from his underrated 1971 album Ram, hadn’t helped. “He’d been doing a lot of preaching, and it got up my nose a little bit,” McCartney said in 1984. “In one song, I wrote, ‘Too many people preaching practices,’ I think is the line. I mean, that was a little dig at John and Yoko. There wasn’t anything else on it that was about them. Oh, there was ‘You took your lucky break and broke it in two.'”
Source: Angie Martoccio/rollingstone.com
