Beatles News
Every Beatles fan can hum a classic George Harrison guitar part. Whether it’s the jangling solo from “A Hard Day’s Night” (1964) or the gorgeous closing moments of “The End” (1969), George had so many standout moments with the Fab Four.
However, it didn’t always come easy. During the sessions for Revolver (1966), Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick described how George drove everyone in the studio nuts trying to record a backwards guitar solo for “I’m Only Sleeping.”
“At the best of times, George had trouble playing solos all the way through forwards,” Emerick quipped in Here, There and Everywhere. With Paul McCartney ready, willing, and able to take a solo off George’s hands at any moment, George had some rough days in the studio over the years.
George’s fascination with Indian music didn’t help matters. From the time he played sitar on “Norwegian Wood” (1965) all the way up to The White Album (1968), George admittedly let his guitar technique slip.
Source: cheatsheet.com
How do you separate fact from fiction about a group that has arguably become the world's biggest band, The Beatles? I've told this story before, but it bears repeating as one of the most underrated moments in rock 'n' roll history.
Since the band's inception well almost 60 years ago, there have been thousands of accounts from the international tabloids, overwhelmed venue owners, miniskirted blondes, flabbergasted hotel maids (what they were called at the time), intense production people and countless other "firsthand" resources. Even though the band was really only together just a few years (formed in 1960, first hit in 1962, "Love Me Do," exploded in America in 1964 and they broke up in 1969-70), the number of behind-the-scenes stories outnumber the amount of days the band was in existence altogether.
Source: Ron Onesti/dailyherald.com
It previews next week's deluxe reissue of 'Abbey Road'
A new mix of The Beatles‘ ‘Come Together’ by Giles Martin has been released, alongside an alternative take of the 1969 classic.
The release comes ahead of the 50th anniversary reissue of The Beatles’ landmark album ‘Abbey Road’ next week (September 27).
Come Together
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Martin, the son of late Beatles producer George Martin, has mixed the whole of ‘Abbey Road’ from the original master tapes, alongside engineer Sam Okell.
As well as Martin’s new mix of ‘Abbey Road’, a new deluxe version of the album adds 23 session recordings and demos. These include Take 5 of ‘Come Together’, which is the other new version of the track released today.
Source: nme.com
A new documentary is peeling back the curtain on the untold story of John Lennon's 1971 album, "Imagine."
In "John & Yoko: Above Us Only Sky," fans will be able to learn more about Lennon and wife Yoko Ono, as well as how the intensely private couple leaned on each other personally and professionally while making the groundbreaking record.
Emmy winner Michael Epstein directs the film -- which premiered on A&E in March -- with a focus on what he calls a "pivotal year" in Lennon's life.
JOHN LENNON WAS ‘ABSOLUTELY DEVASTATED’ OF LOSING HIS MOTHER IN A TRAGIC ROAD ACCIDENT, BOOK REVEALS
"It's a year just after the Beatles have broken up. And just before [John's] going to move to the United States. The film does touch on why John loved [Yoko] and what their union was. And why Yoko saved John," Epstein explained to Fox News.
"It was more than just a love affair," he added. "You know they were artists who worked together and I think John was able to find his voice through Yoko. She helped him fully realize himself as an artist and I know that a lot of Beatles fans ... hate that notion the idea that she took him from us."
Source: Jessica Napoli/foxnews.com
“I always used to say to Linda, ‘When are we going to look at these? We’ve got millions of them.’” Paul McCartney is recounting conversations he had with his late wife, who from the late 1960s onwards documented the family’s everyday life on a Polaroid camera. “We kept saying, ‘Oh we’ll just take one day a year when we look through all our photos.’ Linda got a Polaroid camera shortly after we met. In the early days, it was a great fun thing for anyone to have one, just because of the magic of watching it develop. But being a photographer, she did more with it than most people would, she was very intrigued by the whole thing.”
Some 200 images taken by Linda are now the subject of a new book, Linda McCartney: The Polaroid Diaries, which has been curated by Paul along with his daughters, Stella — a fashion designer — and Mary — a photographer. Everything from the family’s summers spent in Scotland, to more rock-and-roll images of Steve McQueen and Ronnie Wood, are included. “The book is very personal, because it shows these incredibly intimate moments with our family that were captured by our mum,” says Stella. “Looking back at all the Polaroids brings those memories back,” adds Paul.
Source: Grace Cook
New revelations are emerging on how the Beatles broke up after the Abbey Road album 50 years ago.
A definitive new book, with publication to coincide with the new Abbey Road 50th anniversary album, shatters myths about the end of the quartet. As reported, the 11th studio album by the group is out on September 27 with dozens of extra tracks and unheard outtakes.
The Beatles have sold more than 800 million albums worldwide, the most successful band in history. John Lennon’s heroin addiction, which sometimes kept him out of the studio, was far more of an issue than Yoko Ono’s constant presence when the couple was there, according to the Beatles historian Kenneth Womack. Contrary to many reports, Lennon did not hate the long Abbey Road Medley that was created mainly by Paul McCartney and the producer George Martin. Far from ending in total acrimony, Lennon even suggested another album offering four songs each to himself, McCartney and George Harrison, and even two to Ringo Starr “if he wants them.”
Source: Forbes
When NBC canceled The Monkees in 1968, after just two seasons, Micky Dolenz – a California child actor turned teenage pop sensation – might well have joined Jay North, Paul Peterson and Johnny Crawford on the scrap heap of singing TV has-beens.
That, of course, is not what happened. Fueled by ever-ripening ‘60s nostalgia, the Monkees records – many of which were wonderfully written and sung – have remained in high regard, and have continued to sell consistently, if not spectacularly.
All of which adds up to a relatively consistent five-decade career for George Michael Dolenz Jr., who’s 74 years old but as impish and eager to entertain as ever. Not long ago, he finished another cross-country Monkees reunion (with Michael Nesmith, the other surviving member of the quartet) and on Sept. 24, he’ll perform at Ruth Eckerd Hall with a traveling musical circus called It Was Fifty Years Ago Today – A Tribute to the Beatles’ White Album.
Source: stpetecatalyst.com
he John Lennon Educational Tour Bus (Lennon Bus), the premier non-profit 501(c)(3) state-of-the-art mobile production facility that provides hands-on creative experiences to students of all ages, returns to New York City Hall for the launch of the sixth annual Come Together NYC month-long residency on September 16, according to Yoko Ono Lennon.
This year’s launch event, entitled Imagine A City With No Gun Violence!, began on board the Lennon Bus with a roundtable discussion bringing student activists and elected officials together with the Bronx-born musical artist Prince Royce to discuss the next steps needed to end gun violence. The event then moved outside to the steps of New York City Hall for a program featuring the participants in the roundtable including Councilmembers Daniel Dromm, Mark Treyger, and Alicka Ampry-Samuel, along with over 200 students from all five boroughs coming together to inspire student activism in honor of John Lennon, who was killed by gunfire.
Source: globenewswire.com
In the summer of 1968, the other three Beatles watched as Ringo took off for Italy after taking flack from Paul McCartney for the drum part on “Back in the U.S.S.R.” When George staged his own walkout early the following year, people around the band couldn’t help thinking the end was near.
To Geoff Emerick, the legendary engineer behind Sgt. Pepper’s and Revolver, the happiest he remembered John and Paul toward the end was early ’68, when they were recording “Hey Bulldog.” Prior to the heated White Album sessions, the old songwriting partners/friends still had their moments.
A lot changed with the arrival of Yoko in the studio, and true Lennon-McCartney collaborations became fewer and farther between. However, early in the Abbey Road sessions, John and Paul found that old spark. It happened when they picked up a crazy old song from two years earlier.
Source: cheatsheet.com
If you ask a Beatles fan or even a casual music listener why the Beatles broke up, they’ll probably have one simple answer: Yoko Ono. John Lennon’s second wife Yoko was an artist in her own right and was famous for sitting in on the Beatles’ recording sessions. Because of the tension this created between the group, numerous commentators have blamed Yoko for the band’s dissolution. Paul McCartney has repeatedly said that the Beatles did not break up because of Yoko, but does this mean that the two singers are friends?
When Yoko first insisted on entering the studio during the Beatles’ sessions, Paul was annoyed. He told CNN “We weren’t sexist, but girls didn’t come to the studio — they tended to leave us to it. When John got with Yoko, she wasn’t in the control room or to the side. It was in the middle of the four of us.”
Paul would later admit that these experiences caused him to harbor some ill-will towards Yoko. He said that he found her presence in the studio “intrusive,” though he understood that her behavior stemmed from her intense romance with John.
Source: The Cheatsheet
