Beatles News
George Harrison’s Material World Foundation has donated $500,000 to COVID-19 relief. The foundation — started by the late Beatle in 1973 with the release of the LP Living in the Material World — donated the funds to MusiCare’s COVID-19 Foundation, Save the Children, and Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders).
In addition, the foundation launched “The Inner Light Challenge,” in which users across the globe share a line, verse, or chorus from the Beatles’ 1968 B side — featured in a new lyric-video below. One dollar will be donated to pandemic relief for every person who posts the clip with the hashtag #innerlight2020, with a maximum of $100,000.
Harrison’s son, Dhani, covers “The Inner Light” in the clip above. “Without going out of my door/I can know all things on earth,” he sings, ringing a Tibetan singing bowl while sitting on a couch. “Without looking out of my window/I could know the ways of heaven.”
Source: Angie Martoccio/rollingstone.com
This week, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown issued an order requiring people to stay home to help slow the spread of the coronavirus. That means the majority of kids and adults are now at home and may be feeling a little bit restless.
One outlet for a lot of people is music, so now may be the perfect time to start expanding your musical horizons. In the first of a new OPB series, we’re going to speak with musically minded people around the region to discover new music and help you explore genres that might not be part of your regular cultural diet.
Suzanne Nance is the president and CEO of All Classical Portland and the host of Sunday Brunch.
Source: Crystal Ligori/opb.org
In October 1963, The Beatles had yet to break through in America, but they had gotten well on their way in the UK. The Fab Four’s momentum really picked up in May ’63 when their debut Please Please Me began its run at the top of the UK charts.
But those were still humble days in many ways. After recording the majority of their debut LP in just 10 hours, The Beatles made their follow-up (With The Beatles) in a still-brisk seven days. Compare that to, say, the five months they’d later spend on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Source: cheatsheet.com
On June 13th, 1978, The Cramps travelled 3,000 miles from New York City to the Californian city of Napa to perform a notorious gig at a mental hospital in front of just a handful of hardcore fans, around 100 patients as well as a few members of hospital staff who were the only witnesses of one of the most legendary punk shows of all time.
The Lux Interior fronted outfit were invited down to Napa by Bart Swain, a member of staff at Napa State Hospital who had tried to recruit a number of bands to perform at the institute over the years. On this occasion, however, it was one of the rare occasions which that a camera crew filmed their unique performances.
Not only was the show captured on film, but it was also attended by San Franciso based writer Howie Klein who documented it in the July 1978 issue of The New York Rocker and, in his review of the evening, decided to use a string of bizarrely distasteful language. Klein wrote:
Source: faroutmagazine.co.uk
If you were looking for a Beatle who respected the British royal family and could be counted on to say the right thing at the right time, John Lennon wasn’t your guy. Over the years, John made it clear he wasn’t gunning for a knighthood, starting with the return of his MBE to Queen Elizabeth in 1969.
But even in the pre-Beatlemania days, John wanted to get a few shots in when the Fab Four played the Royal Variety Show of 1963. “I cracked a joke on stage,” he said in Anthology. “I was fantastically nervous, but I wanted to say something to rebel a bit, and that was the best I could do.”
Before diving into “Twist and Shout,” John calmly approached the microphone and requested some help from the audience. “Would the people in the cheapest seats clap your hands,” he said. “And the rest of you, if you’d just rattle your jewelry.”
Source: cheatsheet.com
A London municipal crew has repainted the Abbey Road crossing made famous by the cover of The Beatles‘ 1969 album of the same name, while the city is under lockdown to stem the spread of coronavirus.
The crew quietly painted the normally swamped tourist hotspot zebra crossing on Tuesday (March 24), after Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a shutdown of non-essential businesses on Friday (March 20).
The pedestrian crossing was designated a site of national importance by the British government in 2010. This means it can only be altered with the approval of the local authorities which would make a decision based on the site’s historic significance, function and condition, according to Reuters.
Source: Josh Martin/nme.com
A riverside apartment previously owned by Sir Paul McCartney and ex-wife Heather Mills is for sale.
According to Paul McCartney: The Biography, by Philip Norman, the former Beatle gifted cash to Mills to buy the two-bedroom apartment in the exclusive Thames Reach development so she could use it as an office.
Source: Amira Hashish/homesandproperty.co.uk
Tonight we get words of wisdom from two of my favorite Britons ever -- Winston Churchill and George Harrison.
(Others in contention for favorite, in no particular order: John Cleese, Elvis Costello, Emma Thompson, William Shakespeare, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Sean Connery, Brian May’s hair and Laurel or Hardy -- whichever one was British.)
Over Churchill's loud objections, we'll give Harrison top billing, if only because I don't think The Bulldog could sing.
And so, Churchill provides the opening act:
Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
Heck, we're not even at the end of the beginning of this COVID-19 pandemic. Things are probably going to get pretty bad, including right here in Putnam County.
But I know there will be an end. What will life be like on the other side? I don't know. None of us do.
Source: bannergraphic.com
Back in 1963, The Beatles released their Parlophone single I Want to Hold Your Hand. The track also came with This Boy on the B-side, but it turns out there was some controversy behind-the-scenes on this one. In fact, John Lennon’s vocals on the song had replaced George Harrison’s guitar solo.
According to Showbiz CheatSheet, The Beatles’ producer George Martin was very much in control of the band’s recording sessions.
Unlike their later work, they whizzed through their early music in a matter of hours.
The Fab Four had 15 full run-throughs of This Boy, but the middle eight featured Harrison’s guitar solo.
Geoff Emerick, who was working a the studio’s second engineer that day, has revealed in Here, There Everywhere what the producer made of it.
Source: George Simpson/express.co.uk
The writers of The Simpsons say that Paul McCartney “always checks” that Lisa is still a vegetarian, after it became a key condition of his guest appearance on the show.
The Beatles icon appeared alongside his late wife Linda in 1995’s Lisa The Vegetarian, an episode in which Lisa vows to stop eating meat after meeting the McCartneys.
In a new interview with the Radio Times, show consultant David Mirkin – who is also a vegetarian – said he was “happy to comply” with McCartney’s request.
But he admitted that every time he bumps into McCartney, “he always checks. And he’s always surrounded by nine or ten lawyers so it’s quite frightening.”
Source: Nick Reilly/nme.com
