Beatles News
1969. Before the year was out, we proved you could put a man on the moon. You could gather half a million people together in the name of peace and music. But you could not, for love nor money, keep together four young men who were outgrowing the band that had changed the culture forever.
The last year of the 1960s was as busy for the Beatles as it was tumultuous. Within 12 months they would record two albums: Abbey Road — celebrating the 50th anniversary of its U.S. release in October, and Let it Be, with an accompanying film that documented both the fighting and the genius present in the studio. Individually, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison pursued separate lives. Two of them married; one became a father; all of them readied their post-Beatles solo debuts. But before they went their own ways, they began the year with an electrifying live set — their first since 1966 — on a London rooftop.
Source: By Saleah Blancaflor /People Magazine
Paul McCartney has referred to the Beatles’ White Album (1968) as “the tension album,” and you only need to hear a few of the stories to understand what he meant. You might as well start with the time he and John Lennon nearly got into a fistfight in the studio.
That confrontation occurred during the recording of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.” By the time Paul was content with the endless takes and new arrangements on that song, Grammy-winning engineer Geoff Emerick had quit his job in the control room. A month later, Ringo walked out on the band.
We haven’t even mentioned George Harrison leaving for Greece out of frustration during the sessions for “Not Guilty” (a song that later got bumped). In short, Beatles morale was at or near its lowest point while making The White Album.
Source: cheatsheet.com
A good one today from George Harrison! It’s really a tribute to his old bandmate, John Lennon, who was shot and killed in December of 1980. The following Spring, George released a song called, “All Those Years Ago.” He had actually written the song already, but after what happened to John, he decided to write some special lyrics, and dedicate it to John’s memory. Obvously, a lot of people liked it! The song made it all the way to #2 in the country, and stayed there for 3 straight weeks, and the only reason it didn’t top the charts is because it came out at the same time with “Bette Davis Eyes,” a giant hit record by Kim Carnes. George got a lot of help on this one, too, from Ringo Starr on drums, and Paul McCartney on bass. In fact, Paul had Wings at the time, so Denny Laine ended up on keys and background vocals, and Paul’s wife, Linda, also sang on the song. George had certainly had his share of differences with John over the years, but if you listen to the song and pay attention to the words, it’s apparent that he obviously looked up to him—almost like a big brother.
Source: Ron Stutts/chapelboro.com
By the late ’60s, many Beatles fans probably couldn’t recognize the band that once serenaded the world with “Love Me Do” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” They had long hair and beards, no longer played live concerts, and wrote songs like “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “It’s All Too Much.”
There were many reasons for the changes, and drugs had to rank somewhere near the top of that list. After Rubber Soul, their full-fledged pothead record, the band made the acid-tinged Revolver and equally far-out Sgt. Pepper’s.
But drugs only counted as one reason. The band’s full commitment to the studio and maturity as songwriters encouraged them to take their music as far as they could. George Harrison’s backwards guitar solo and John Lennon’s “I Am the Walrus” came from a few of those efforts.
Source: cheatsheet.com
The Beatles didn’t take long to catch the attention of the top names in the music industry. In the summer of 1964, Bob Dylan insisted on visiting the band in New York. And when 1965’s Rubber Soul hit the airwaves, The Beach Boys were simply knocked out by it.
By ’65, The Beach Boys had already notched multiple No. 1 hits and had many more chart successes. However, they weren’t taken terribly seriously, as they mostly sung about catching waves and dating girls with cool cars. In some ways, their songwriting was like The Beatles’ had been in 1964.
But that changed after hearing tracks like “In My Life,” “Girl,” and other knockout songs from Rubber Soul. For Brian Wilson, the creative force behind The Beach Boys, he now had a mission: to top The Beatles’ latest album.
Source: cheatsheet.com
Ringo Starr does jumping-jacks on the edge of the stage as he sings “Yellow Submarine” to an audience of one: me. It’s the day before he’s due to kick-off the North American leg of his All-Starr Band’s 30th-anniversary tour, and the group are rehearsing at the very un-rock ‘n’ roll hour of 10:30 a.m. They maneuver with the power and agility of a pro sports team training for the championship. Yesterday was the first time they’d played together since they wrapped a string of Japanese dates three months earlier, but the 14th incarnation of the ever-evolving supergroup sounds as tight as ever. A handful of sound technicians and crew jog busily around the empty Colosseum Theater at Caesar’s Palace in Windsor, Ontario. Tomorrow, every one of the 5,000 seats will be filled but for now, I am the sum total of the roaring crowd and I applaud as the song comes to an end. It’s the only socially acceptable way to vent my excitement. It’s not every day you get a private show from a Beatle.
Source: Jordan Runtagh/people.com
The Beatles’ body of work has been so worshipped, scrutinized and dissected that 50 years later, one could wonder what’s left to discover. After all, how much more can one say about “Abbey Road”? It’s arguably the greatest album by the greatest group of all time, and is one of the premiere artistic statements of its era. And as the final album the Beatles made together — it was recorded after “Let It Be” but released before — it was created in a spirit of pre-breakup détente: The Beatles knew they were splitting up, so they made one last big effort for the team, and consequently, “Abbey Road” has none of the tension and contentiousness of “The White Album” and “Let It Be.” It’s all harmony, in every sense of the word.
Although the Beatles’ catalog has already been revisited several times — first on CD in the ‘80s, then the “Anthology” rarities series in the ‘90s, then in meticulously remastered stereo editions in the ‘00s, then in mono, and now in 50th anniversary editions — each one has revealed tantalizing surprises for longtime fans.
Source: Jem Aswad/variety.com
Sunday marked 55 years since the fab four made a whole lot of Winnipeggers twist and shout without singing or strumming a single note during their little visit to the city. George Harrison waves, upper left, as he and Ringo Starr, right, John Lennon, lower left, and Paul McCartney, not pictured, descend the steps of their plane after landing at the Winnipeg airport on Aug. 18, 1964. (CBC)
The Beatles landed at the Winnipeg airport on Aug. 18, 1964. Their brief stopover on the tarmac was punctuated by screams and cries from the droves of young fans who flocked to the airport to greet them.
"It's the first place that they ever set foot in Canada," said music historian John Einarson. "They didn't come and play, they didn't come and perform, but they came for the fans ... and fuel."
Source: cbc.ca
When The Beatles received their MBE awards from Queen Elizabeth in 1965, they still hadn’t hit their creative or commercial peak. That would come a few years later with Sgt. Pepper’s, The White Album, and Abbey Road.
But they’d already started their march up the ladder of British society, as far as royal honors are concerned. At the time, John Lennon wasn’t all that impressed with his MBE, and a few years later he returned his to Buckingham Palace with a cheeky note addressed to the queen.
As for the other Beatles, they seemed to have more respect for the honor — especially drummer Ringo Starr. “I was never giving mine back,” he said later. “It meant a lot.”
The same went for Paul McCartney, always the less disruptive half of the Lennon-McCartney alliance. That attitude likely served Paul well when his name came up for knighthood in the 1990s. For a while, it appeared he’d be the only Beatle who’d ever be addressed as “sir.”
Source: cheatsheet.com
It was an acid trip with Peter Fonda, who has died at the age of 79, that inspired John Lennon to write one of The Beatles’ classic album tracks.
In 1965, the actor – who would go on to co-write and star in counterculture classic Easy Rider four years later – was enjoying a night out with the Fab Four when George Harrison, high on LSD, feared he would die.
Fonda, who survived a near-fatal shooting accident as a child, told The Post in 2000: “I was saying, ‘Don’t worry George, it’s OK. I know what it’s like to be dead. We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.
These words of encouragement, though, confused Lennon. Fonda recalled: “Lennon looks over and says, ‘You know what it’s like to be dead? Who put all that s*** in your head? You’re making me feel like I’ve never been born.'"
Source: Jacob Stolworthy/independent.co.uk
