Beatles News
Ringo Starr brought out The Beach Boys to play The Beatles song ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’ during a recent performance in Chicago.
Starr and his band were booked as headliners for the Ravinia Festival, one of oldest outdoor music festival in the United States. As Starr rolled through a series of hits taken from his extensive back catalogue, the former Beatles drummer successfully combined material from his solo career with that of the band in a rousing performance.
Having played fan favourites such as ‘Don’t Pass Me By’, Yellow Submarine and more, Starr also produced cover versions of Toto, Buck Owens and Carl Perkins in a fulfilled performance. For his final act though, the 79-year-old had something very special planned to close the show.
Having seen The Beach Boys perform at the festival the same day, Starr invited Mike Love and the band back to the stage for a performance of 1967 Beatles classic ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’.
Source: faroutmagazine.co.uk
When Beatles fans in America think of “Beatlemania” and the 1964 British Invasion, most think of “I Want to Hold Your Hand” as the signature song of that moment. They have good reason to do so: That track represented the band’s first No. 1 hit on this side of the Atlantic.
However, the Fab Four had notched several No. 1 hits in the UK by February of ’64. “Please Please Me,” the band’s first huge success on the charts, went all the way to No. 2 in early ’63. That April, “From Me to You” became the first chart-topping single on the Beatles’ resume.
In July , The Beatles were the dominant force in British pop and went to EMI studios on Abbey Road to record their next single. Prior to the actual recording session, the band took some publicity photos outside.
Source: cheatsheet.com
We’re stepping back in to the Far Out Magazine Vault to revisit the iconic moment when John Lennon performed his classic song ‘Imagine’ live on television in 1972.
The performance, coming as part of ‘The Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon’, broadcast from the Americana Hotel on 7th Avenue in New York City. With Yoko Ono on the keyboard, the duo were backed up by Elephant’s Memory band and rolled through a rendition of ‘Imagine’ as well as Yoko’s political song ‘Now or Never’ and ‘Give Peace a Chance’.
Introducing the pair to the stage, Lewis described Ono and Lennon as “…two of the most unusual people in all the world, and I don’t mean just in the world of entertainment. They fit no patterns, meet no standards except the standard of excellence. Ladies and Gentlemen, John Lennon and Yoko.”
Source: faroutmagazine.co.uk
While there are a lot of bands who are straightforward about the origin of their names, The Beatles was not one of them. Despite the fact that The Beatles was a legendary group and their name is known all around the world, even to this day, not many people have any idea why they are called “The Beatles.”
If you’re curious about how The Beatles got their famous name, read on below to learn more about this interesting tidbit.
The Beatles started with The Quarrymen
Before The Beatles was even a thing, there was a group known as The Quarrymen. This band was started in the 1950s by John Lennon and a few schoolmates from Quarry Bank High School.
Paul McCartney joined the group in 1957 after seeing them play live. George Harrison also joined a year later.
By 1960, Lennon began studying at the Liverpool College of Art and his former schoolmates left the band. Thus, “The Quarrymen” no longer felt like a fitting name since the group was not made up of Quarry Bank students anymore. They decided to come up with a new name.
Source: cheatsheet.com
It was perhaps prophetic The Rose Queen was paraded on a float that bright July day.
Picked from a local Sunday school, ribbons and homemade roses in her hair, she perched shyly on her throne and waved regally to the merry residents assembled along the streets of Woolton, Liverpool, on July 6 1957.
Following less elegantly was another float, an old coal truck, with a raggle taggle band of schoolboys playing instruments and singing loudly on its trailer.
One young lad sat with his skinny legs in drainpipes dangling off the back, strumming his guitar and blasting out his tune.
This was skiffle band The Quarrymen, and that was John Lennon, en-route to entertain visitors at Woolton's St Peter's Church summer fete – and unbeknown to him, make history.
Source: Emily Retter/mirror.co.uk
‘Something’, a song written by George Harrison and included as part of The Beatles’ 1969 album Abbey Road, marked a historic moment for the band in becoming the first Harrison composition to be released as a Beatles A-side.
With Harrison taking lead vocals on the track, he would later admit that the song was written about the Hindu deity Krishna and, when speaking to Rolling Stone in 1976, explained: “All love is part of a universal love,” when discussing his writing style. Detailing further, it emerged that Harrison had written the song about his wife, Pattie Boyd, and he once said: When you love a woman, it’s the God in her that you see.”
Harrison’s love song is regarded by many as some of his finest work and, as the years have passed, countless major figures have attempted to put their own spin on it. The likes of Shirley Bassey, Joe Cocker, Peggy Lee, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John and Frank Sinatra have all added their versions of ‘Something’.
Source: faroutmagazine.co.uk
Ringo Starr says 1969's Abbey Road will be next in the Beatles' expanded box-set reissue series. Noting the album's looming 50th anniversary, Starr says he's particularly thrilled with sound improvements over the years.
"I've loved all the re-releases because of the remastering," Starr tells Billboard. "You can hear the drums, which got dialed down in the old days."
The Beatles have already remastered and expanded 1967's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and 1968's self-titled "White Album," adding acoustic versions and alternate takes to give fans a fuller picture of how these now-familiar songs evolved. Starr, who just kicked off his latest All-Starr Band dates, admits that he prefers to focus on the originally released material.
"I get a bit fed up, personally, with all those, like, Take 9 or Take 3, the odd takes that we didn't put out," he said, "but that's part of the box set and you have to do stuff like that. But I've always just listened to the record itself, what we put out in the '60s or 1970, and it's brighter."
Source: ultimateclassicrock.com
On August 3, 1964, a month after A Hard Day's Night helped the world fall even more in love with the Beatles, the BBC offered their rabid fans a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Fab Four's debut movie with Follow the Beatles.
The Robert Robinson-narrated documentary, which you can see here, showed off even more of the Beatles' charming and witty personalities, and revealed some very interesting secrets and perspectives on the making of their debut film. Here's six things we learned while re-watching Follow the Beatles all these years later.
The Beatles were bullied and manhandled on their own film set
John Lennon, Ringo Starr, George Harrison and Paul McCartney were constantly grabbed at and pushed around by fans, onlookers, and even the police who were involved in the film. A Hard Day’s Night writer Allen Owen discusses his astonishment with how the calm, relaxed Beatles “just went with it”, despite repeatedly being subject to actual physical pain.
Source: ultimateclassicrock.com
When you hear about shouting matches during Beatles recording sessions, the usual suspects are John Lennon and Paul McCartney. It makes sense in a lot of ways. John and Paul wrote the bulk of the band’s material and often came into the studio juggling multiple ideas.
So when Paul dragged out the recording of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” across five days, you understand why John might snap at him. The same goes for Paul telling his bandmates to stuff it and walking out during the “She Said She Said” sessions. (George Harrison filled in on bass.)
However, you never hear much about John or Paul (or anyone else) clashing with the classical musicians producer George Martin hired to play on Beatles tracks. Though Paul made an odd request during the recording of the strings for “Yesterday,” those sessions went well enough.
Source: cheatsheet.com
Ringo Starr has kicked off plenty of tours with his All-Star Bands over the years. But Thursday night's (Aug. 1) start of the Beatles drummer's latest sojourn had some particularly special meaning.
It's been just over 30 years -- since July 23, 1989 -- that Starr launched his first All-Starr Band outing, a corps that included brother-in-law Joe Walsh, Dr. John, Billy Preston, Rick Danko and Levon Helm of The Band, and Clarence Clemons and Nils Lofgren of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band. His similarly well-credentialed 15th lineup, meanwhile, showed the state of the All-Starrs is still solid, delivering a characteristically hit-filled, just over two-hour show before a packed and exuberant house at Caesars Windsor on the south shore of the Detroit River.
Source: BillBoard
