Beatles News
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
Paul McCartney hasn’t been hugely provocative in recent years. However, that doesn’t mean he can’t make edgy music when he wants to. One of his more recent songs has lyrics that are a little risque by the standards of his recent work.
But Paul is still Paul. He has a famously good — and often cheeky — sense of humor. Paul worked in some provocative lyrics into one of his recent songs — without actually saying them.
One of the most famous songs from Paul’s album Egypt Station is called “Fuh You.” That title might look like a typo but it’s not. “Fuh You” might remind people of a much dirtier phrase and that’s exactly what Paul intended.
According to NME, it all started with the original version of the song, which included the line “I just want to for you.” Ryan Tedder, the producer of the song and the lead singer of OneRepublic, misheard the lyric as “I just want to f*ck you.” Tedder told Paul he shouldn’t sing a line that vulgar. Paul had a mischievous idea.
Source: cheatsheet.com
The Beatles' former drummer, Ringo Starr, hits eighty but feels just as young at heart as he did decades ago and says he hopes for better celebrations when the pandemic is over.
On July 7, singer-songwriter Ringo Starr known famously as the drummer for The Beatles, turned eighty years old. However, due to the pandemic, what would have been a remarkable celebration was turned into a virtual event.
The musician put together a virtual charity concert he titled "Ringo's Big Birthday Show" and a recorded episode of a video series, "Rolling Stone Interview: Special Edition." In the interview, the singer claimed that he hardly felt his age: He said:
"80? Man, I'm only 24 in here. That's a good thing and a bad thing. Yeah, 80, it's like, far out. It's a difficult one. 70 was easy. I think 40 was the hardest."
Source: Joe Akins/news.amomama.com
Photographer Fiona Adams, whose famous shot of The Beatles jumping in the air was used on the sleeve of the Twist and Shout EP, has died at the age of 84.
Adams captured the iconic image of the Fab Four on a London bomb site for Boyfriend magazine in April 1963.
The photo was then used on the record sleeve and has been described by the National Portrait Gallery as "the one that defined their early look".
Adams also snapped many other pop acts, from Bob Dylan to the Rolling Stones.
According to the late photographer's website, The Beatles "readily agreed" when Adams asked them to pose for Boyfriend magazine.
Having previously spotted an undeveloped bombsite near Euston station, she hailed a taxi and took them to the abandoned area.
Source: BBC News
"I’m celebrating with my friends in a new way this year — we’re going to have to keep our distance due to the coronavirus,” Ringo Starr said
Ringo Starr celebrated his 80th birthday on Wednesday with a virtual 65-minute show that included old and new performances by himself and famous friends.
The stream was raising money for a number of organizations, including the Black Lives Matter Global Network for the fight to “end all this racist violence,” Starr said, as well as The David Lynch Foundation, MusiCares and WaterAid.
“As most of you know, I’m fond of a good birthday party… but this is a bad year to host a get-together of any kind,” said the famous ex-Beatle, sitting behind a drum kit wearing a colorful face mask adorned with the peace sign, according to Variety.
Source: jpost.com
The Beatles stopped performing live concerts in August 1966 and focused instead on the latter half of their studio albums with more experimental music. But then on January 30, 1969, the Fab Four gave an unannounced show on the rooftop of Apple Corps headquarters at 3 Savile Row; their final Iive performance together. In a new post on The Beatles’ official Instagram account, Sir Ringo Starr reflected on the incredible occasion.
The Beatles drummer said: “We hadn’t been seen playing live in a long while.
“Only the crew were there and some people on the rooftop.
“But I’ve always liked the idea that maybe half a million people would have come to see us if they could have got there.”
However, in the end, the band’s final live show was shut down due to noise complaints.
Source: George Simpson/express.co.uk
As The Music Network reports, The Beatles played a sold-out show at Melbourne’s Festival Hall back in 1964, performing tracks including ‘She Loves You’, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’, ‘Twist and Shout’, ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ and ‘Long Tall Sally’. While John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison were all there, the band relied on the services of stand-in drummer Jimmie Nicol during the concert. All up, the group played 13 shows across Australia.
Nine will be airing the full concert, titled One Night Only – The Beatles in Oz, on Monday (July 13) at 9:30pm AEST. It will also be available to stream on 9Now. The concert will be remastered and will include never-before-seen footage.
Source: nme.com
When fans and critics start ranking all the albums by The Beatles, you usually find Let It Be (1970) near the bottom. That makes sense for a number of reasons. For starters, the last Beatles release wasn’t a product of all four band members working together in the studio.
In early ’70, after the band handed the tapes over to producer Phil Spector, Paul McCartney was barely speaking with the other three Beatles. And when he heard Spector’s rendition of “The Long and Winding Road” Paul became irate (to put it mildly).
Meanwhile, John Lennon didn’t play on “I Me Mine,” the last track The Beatles recorded in a studio as a band. And, speaking of George Harrison songs, you have to wonder how George only had “For You Blue” and “I Me Mine” on there, what with all the songs he had stashed in his notebook.
Source: cheatsheet.com
