Beatles News
Would The Beatles be able to make it in America? In 1963, no one could say. They’d certainly built up a fan base in the U.K. by then. “Love Me Do,” the Fab Four’s very first single, had cracked the top 20 on the British charts in ’62. By April ’63, the group had begun their run of No. 1 U.K. hits.
But over in America few people could tell you anything about The Beatles in those days. “Please Please Me,” the band’s first U.S. single, failed to enter any of the three music-industry charts (including the Billboard Hot 100). And sales were dismal.
In Beatles Anthology, Paul McCartney spoke about those early returns. “‘From Me To You’ was released – a flop in America. ‘She Loves You’ – a big hit in England, big No. 1 in England – a flop in the U.S.A. Nothing until ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand.'”
Indeed, everything happened for The Beatles after “I Want to Hold Your Hand” hit record stores in the last days of ’63. It was a stunning reversal from the “nothing” of just a few months earlier.
Source: cheatsheet.com
If you were an American fan of The Beatles in the ’60s, you had to feel like you were getting the short end of the stick. Take the U.S. release of Rubber Soul (1965). When Americans opened their copies of the new Fab album, they found “Nowhere Man,” “If I Needed Someone,” and “Drive My Car” missing.
To get those tracks, you had to wait until Yesterday… And Today arrived six months later. In a sense, you were experiencing The Beatles on several months’ delay. But it also worked the other way. When “I’m Only Sleeping” appeared on that same album, it beat the U.K. release of the John Lennon track (on Revolver) by two months.
Source: cheatsheet.com
If you were an American fan of The Beatles in the ’60s, you had to feel like you were getting the short end of the stick. Take the U.S. release of Rubber Soul (1965). When Americans opened their copies of the new Fab album, they found “Nowhere Man,” “If I Needed Someone,” and “Drive My Car” missing.
To get those tracks, you had to wait until Yesterday… And Today arrived six months later. In a sense, you were experiencing The Beatles on several months’ delay. But it also worked the other way. When “I’m Only Sleeping” appeared on that same album, it beat the U.K. release of the John Lennon track (on Revolver) by two months.
Source: cheatsheet.com
When speaking about the influences on The Beatles‘ music, John Lennon was always ready to pay tribute to the great musicians who came before him. Speaking about the early hit “Please Please Me,” John said it began as his crack at a Roy Orbison song.
In other cases, he might take an Elvis Presley line and run with it. Or he’d take a Beethoven piano lick and play it backwards to come up with a new theme (as on “Because“). When it came to the 1961 Bobby Parker track “Watch Your Step,” John acknowledged its influence on multiple Beatles songs. And he called it a direct descendant of Ray Charles’ “What’d I Say.”
On “I Feel Fine,” the 1964 single that topped the Billboard charts, John followed Parker’s lead with a riff he played in nearly the same tempo. Meanwhile, the rhythm Ringo Starr laid down also traces back to Charles’ groundbreaking 1959 track via Parker.
Source: cheatsheet.com
John Lennon: Son Julian discusses Yoko Ono in 1999
The Beatles engaged in a tumultuous relationship with their guitarist and singer John Lennon. The supposed "feud" between Lennon and his pal Paul McCartney has been well publicised, especially when it came to discussing Lennon's wife Yoko Ono.
When Ono came onto the scene a lot of speculation began that she was somehow hindering the band.
Despite this, Lennon went on to write a heartfelt song, The Ballad of John and Yoko in a B-side record alongside Old Brown Shoe.
Although Ono was criticised by both McCartney and Lennon's fans, the song is certainly one of the band's more emotionally charged songs.
In 1980 and 1969 Lennon spoke out about the song, and what it really meant to him to write it.
Source: Callum Crumlish/express.co.uk
John Lennon is often seen as a lyrical poet — but he had a lot of praise for a “rock poet” who came before him. In addition, John said he got someone very close to him to appreciate this rock icon’s music. Interestingly, John said this rocker was a major influence on Bob Dylan.Jann S. Wenner of Rolling Stone interviewed John at length in the 1971 book Lennon Remembers.
Late in the book, Wenner asked John which artists he admired. John praised Andy Warhol, Frederico Fellini, Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane and the 1950s rock stars Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. He lavished praise on rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Chuck Berry.
Source: cheatsheet.com
Hamburg has long been a thriving port. And ports need a lot of ropes. So, ropemaking was an important trade in the 17th century, when those who made them chose a long stretch of ground in the St Pauli district to produce their wares.
Now, here I am in 2020, on a pilgrimage to Ropemakers’ Way — or, as it’s known in German, Reeperbahn.
But, in truth, I am not here to learn about the ropes. Reeperbahn has another claim to fame. Almost 60 years ago to the day, a singer/guitarist called Tony Sheridan hired a band from Liverpool to back him at the Indra Club at the far end of the street. The band was called The Beatles.
Source: Mark Jones/dailymail.co.uk
Bill and Ted Face the Musicimagines a world in which the duo played by Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves could create the song that unites the world. Indeed, such is the mission at hand, as the now-middle-aged men race against time. Ultimately though, the Wyld Stallyns need a little help from their friends, the Beatles.
At least that’s how it went behind the scenes.Nearly 30 years have passed since Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey. And Bill (Winter) and Ted (Reeves) still haven’t fulfilled their destiny. With just 78 minutes to go until time-space folds in on itself, the two lifelong friends embark on a quest to take the fateful song from their future selves. Naturally, that plan doesn’t go nearly as smoothly as Bill and Ted hope.
Source: cheatsheet.com
“We were there four months—or George and I were. We lost thirteen pounds and (barely) looked a day older,” John Lennon told a BBC reporter while promoting the Beatles’ new business venture, Apple Records, of The Fab Four’s 1968 visit to India to study with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. “I don’t know what level he’s on, but we had a nice holiday in India and came back rested-to-play businessmen.”
“He’s on the level,” Paul McCartney, ever the diplomat, chimed in.
Fifty-two years ago, in the spring of 1968, the Beatles traveled to Rishikesh, India, to study with Maharishi, after meeting the ambassador of Transcendental Meditation in the summer of 1967. It’s an oft-discussed but little understood period in the band’s history, and came at a time when the Beatles were both at the top of the mountain creatively and culturally, but had also just come out of the rockiest period they’d ever experienced since exploding into the world’s collective consciousness earlier that decade.
Source: Jeff Slate/thedailybeast.com
It's probably fair to say that when the Beatles released the double-A sided 'Yellow Submarine' and 'Eleanor Rigby' in 1966, the world did not see it coming.
As a rule, global stars at the top of their game did not release novelty songs. Coupling one with a string-laden ballad about loneliness must have seemed plain odd.
Reviewing the Beatles' album 'Revolver' in a music magazine in 1966, the Kinks' Ray Davies probably echoed the view of many 'serious' musicians of the time. He dismissed 'Yellow Submarine' as 'a load of rubbish, really'. And he was equally dismissive of 'Eleanor Rigby', calling it a song 'to please music teachers in primary schools'.
Source: Jim Hayes/independent.ie
