Beatles News
Paul McCartney is already king of pop-rock holiday radio with his synth-driven 1979 staple "Wonderful Christmastime." But it turns out he also dominates his home stereo around Yuletide with a full album of Christmas carol instrumentals he recorded "just for the family."
"Years ago, I thought, ‘There's not very good Christmas records,’ so I actually went into my studio over a couple of years and I made one," the former Beatle told BBC Radio 4’s World at One. “It gets brought out each year, I’ve just got a little demo of it, but the kids like it. It’s kind of traditional — it's something they've heard through the years, and now it's the grandkids getting indoctrinated with my carols record.”
While it's not technically an original Christmas album in the traditional sense, McCartney did assemble a goofy, holiday-themed recording as a present for his Beatles bandmates in 1965. Throughout the extremely rare set, which surfaced online in 2017, he impersonates an American DJ and plays cuts from artists like the Beach Boys, Elvis Presley and the Rolling Stones.
Source: ultimateclassicrock.com
Yes, the album cover is famous, it's iconic, it is whatever you want to call it. Jesus-like John Lennon, barefoot (dead?) Paul, and George and Ringo too. How many of your friends and neighbors have used a picture of their family at a crosswalk for their Facebook cover photo or an annual holiday card? Maybe you have done it yourself (no, the Raffs have never given it a try!)
But it wasn't for the visual effect that I asked my sound system to play the album last night. Barb was out at one of her many book clubs, I was going to do some reading, and I wanted a little background music. Background music? HAH! For the next 45 minutes or so, I didn't read another word.
You can look up the rankings of Beatle albums (I looked at a bunch) and Abbey Road never falls below #4. But you can have your Revolver and Sgt Pepper and Rubber Soul. For my money (OK-I don't pay for music with Alexa) there is no better Beatle listen than AR.
Source: chicagonow.com
Paul McCartney announced that his 2005 children’s book High in the Clouds is being adapted into an animated movie produced by Netflix and Gaumont.
Oscar nominee Timothy Reckart will direct from a script by Jon Croker, while McCartney himself will provide original songs and music.
“To the creatures of the woodland, the land of Animalia sounds like a dream – a tropical island where all the animals live in harmony,” the book’s synopsis reads. “They are overshadowed by a much more evil community: the polluted Megatropolis, whose dirty skyscrapers block the horizon. And then one day, Wirral the Squirrel's woodland is destroyed by developers and he is thrown into the nightmare world of Megatropolis.
Source: ultimateclassicrock.com
hroughout his career, world-renowned British composer Howard Goodall has learned not to be too prescriptive, allowing his collection of sacred and secular music to take on a life of its own.
“It’s not my job to tell people what to think or what to believe,” he said. “It’s my job to put pieces out there that prompt people to think about things and respond in their own way.”
Whether writing choral music, stage musicals, or film and television scores, he is not presumptuous in regards to how his work impacts others - an approach that correlates with his insistence on editorial independence as a distinguished music historian and broadcaster.
Source: Nick Powell and Julian Gill, Staff writer/houstonchronicle.com
By 1966, The Who had become bona fide pop stars. “My Generation,” released late in the previous year, shot to No. 2 on the UK charts. “Substitute,” the band’s follow-up, cracked the top five in March ’66. That made four top-10 singles in about a year’s time.
But that didn’t make the band any less dysfunctional. In fact, ’66 was one of the high points for chaos within The Who. Though the band allowed singer Roger Daltrey back into the bands after he’d beaten up drummer Keith Moon, the situation hadn’t gotten much better.
In fact, by spring ’66, Daltrey was skipping Who gigs, which prompted speculation the band would replace him. Meanwhile, relations between Moon and Pete Townshend had deteriorated beyond belief. It included an incident in which Moon chased Townshend through a train car while wielding a knife.
Source: cheatsheet.com
Bonjour! Today we did a very comprehensive analysis of Paul McCartney’s Twitter activity. So let’s do it. These are the main things: as of 2019-11-17, Paul McCartney (@PaulMcCartney) has 4023414 Twitter followers, is following 16 people, has tweeted 5009 times, has liked 99 tweets, has uploaded 2532 photos and videos and has been on Twitter since September 2009.
Going from the top of the page to the bottom, their latest tweet, at the time of writing, has 73 replies, 648 retweets and 2,669 likes, their second latest tweet has 23 replies, 103 reweets and 917 likes, their third latest tweet has 221 replies, 267 retweets and 2,010 likes, their fourth latest tweet has 81 replies, 369 retweets and 3,022 likes and their fifth latest tweet has 93 replies, 1,386 retweets and 6,317 likes. (We could keep going, but we think you get the idea… 😛)
Source: globalrealnews.com
We recently covered how Paul McCartney is one of the most giving and charitable individuals in all of rock music, if not all of the music industry entirely when McCartney left this massive tip at a restaurant. In a touching yet unrelated follow-up to that story, we can once again shine another glaring example on why there is no other individual in this world like Sir Paul himself.
The iconic co-founder of the Beatles recently took to Twitter to proclaim his involvement in ‘The World’s Big Sleep Out’. According to the official website of the campaign: “The World’s Big Sleep Out Campaign was founded by Josh Littlejohn MBE, the co-founder of the charity Social Bite – based in Scotland.” It is run in partnership with multiple organizations such as UNICEF USA, The Institute for Global Homelessness, Malala Fund and others. The goal of this endeavor is to help raise awareness for homelessness and displacement. McCartney had this to say via Twitter about the campaign. Paul McCartney ‘angers’ Michael Jackson in studio photo.
Source: Mike Mazzarone/alternativenation.net
A new event will give Beatles fans a chance to hear the legendary album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in a new immersive fashion. It will take place at National Museums Liverpool’s Dr Martin Luther King Jr Building at the Royal Albert Dock from 19 December 2019 to 9 January 2020 – not including 24-26 December and 31 December to 1 January.
Grammy-award-winning producer Giles Martin, son of Beatles producer George Martin, spoke to the Liverpool Echo about the location’s significance, saying that “without Liverpool there would be no Sgt Pepper. Liverpool is where it should be.” He also discussed the unique audio experience on offer, saying “people will become fully immersed in a soundscape, which is unlike any other. For me, it’s like imagining falling through the vinyl of a record and into this world where you’re surrounded by The Beatles. It’s like sitting in Abbey Road’s Studio 2 and having The Beatles play for you.”
Source: Evigan Xiao/guitar.com
John Lennon was not just a global music phenomenon, but an outspoken advocate for the anti-war, Native American, African American and feminist movements. Here are some of his most memorable quotes from his lifetime of activism and entertainment, according to goalcast.com.
“If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace.”
“Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.”
“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”
Source: Katie Walker/deseret.com
Billboard Magazine recently released its list of the Greatest 125 Artists of All Time, with The Beatles taking the top spot.
Rounding out the top five are The Rolling Stones at two, Elton John at three, Mariah Carey at four, and Madonna at five.
Music journalist Eric Alper said the point of this list is really quite simple: to spark debate and controversy.
“It’s fun for people like you and I to sit here and complain or gloat or be gleeful that our favourite artists are making another chart.”
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Let’s look at the band Chicago, best known for a string of hits like Hard To Say I’m Sorry, 25 Or 6 To 4 and Look Away. They took the number 10 slot, ahead of Elvis Presley.
“I remember them as kind of the AM radio staple in the 1980s and then they disappeared,” said Alper during his recent appearance on the 630 CHED Afternoon News. “But for 19-consecutive studio albums, they sold over a million copies in America.”
Another interesting case on this list is Taylor Swift.
Source: David Boles Global News/globalnews.ca
