Beatles News
Int he summer of 1963, The Beatles arrive at the BBC Paris Studio in London armed with a very special plan to add their own spin on an Elvis Presley classic.
Recording material with producer Terry Henebery for the eighth edition of the Pop Go The Beatles radio show, the four lads from Liverpool would record ‘I’m Gonna Sit Right Down And Cry (Over You)’, one of three Elvis songs they put to tape that day.
While Ringo Starr has always professed his distaste for drum solos, he would step up to the mark for The Beatle’s rockabilly version of the song which remained unreleased until 1994 when it was included on the Live at the BBC album.
Source: faroutmagazine.co.uk
When you run through your favorite Beatles songs credited to Lennon-McCartney, you’ll find a bunch written by either John or Paul (i.e., not both). “Yesterday,” Paul’s masterpiece, came to him in his sleep and went on record without any other Beatles backing him.
If you’re a fan of the 1969 romp “The Ballad of John and Yoko,” that one obviously came straight from John. Then there were tracks like “Come Together,” which began as a pure Lennon composition but got an assist from Paul and the gang in the studio.
As for late-era Beatles songs worthy of the Lennon-McCartney tag, Sgt. Pepper’s is the place to go. On that album, both Paul and John were energized and working together on most of the songs. That includes the classic “A Day in the Life.”
For those who want to isolate what is the best Beatles song of all and a true collaboration between the great songwriters, the closing track from Sgt. Pepper’s just about checks every box.
Source: cheatsheet.com
John Lennon Official revealed that this photograph taken during the recording sessions for The Beatles (The White Album) at Abbey Road. They also revealed the short story of how and when Jonh Lennon felt guilty to Yoko Ono.
Here is the story:
“GLASS ONION, 1968⠀
“That’s me, just doing a throwaway song, you know, à-la-‘Walrus’, à-la-everything-I’ve-ever-written.
I’m throwing the line in ‘the Walrus was Paul’ there, just to confuse everybody a bit more and because I felt slightly guilty because I’d got Yoko and he’d got nothing and I was going to quit. And so I thought ‘Walrus’ has now got to be me, meaning ‘I am the one’.
Only it didn’t mean that in the song. The reason is, it could’ve been ‘I’m the fox terrier’, you know? I mean, it’s just a bit of poetry. So it was just thrown in like that.”⠀
Source: Enes K./metalheadzone.com
The State Farm Center, located at 1800 S. First St. in Champaign, will be home to performance of Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band on August 20.
The former drummer of The Beatles Ringo Starr will be performing with his band at the State Farm Center on Aug. 20.
Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band will make a stop in Champaign as part of a 2019 tour which marks the band’s 30th anniversary. The band played their first show at the Park Central Amphitheatre in Dallas, Texas, in 1989.
The rock band announced the North American expansion of its 2019 tour back in January. The band performed nine concerts in Japan earlier this year.
Starr is the only constant member of the band, with the rest of the lineup shifting. Twelve variations of the band have toured, according to the music website Discogs.
Source: Eunice Alpasan/dailyillini.com
While every Beatles show after 1963 was something of a circus, nothing compared to the band’s ’66 tour. By then, the Fab Four were so popular they were traveling around in the back of an armored van. And it turned out they needed that level of protection.
After a violent scene at the airport in the Philippines and threats from the Ku Klux Klan in America’s South, the band’s security detail more than had their hands full. Meanwhile, the quality of a Beatles live performance had plummeted. In the words of John Lennon, it was “a freak show.”
Ringo couldn’t hear the other three playing (and vice versa). And it’s doubtful fans could hear any music above the screaming girls. Practically speaking, a Beatles tour had become impossible.
However, that wasn’t the only reason the band gave up on playing in front of fans. Beginning with the Revolver album, the music itself represented a real challenge when it came to live performances.
Source: cheatsheet.com
When Beatles fans got their hands on Revolver (1966), they found what many considered a pleasant surprise: three songs by George Harrison. On top of the blistering “Taxman,” George delivered the sitar-infused “Love You To” and the grooving “I Want to Tell You.”
Meanwhile, he’d worked his tail off to get a backwards guitar solo down for John Lennon’s “I’m Only Sleeping.” In fact, George obsessed so much over that track he drove the studio engineers crazy. All in all, you could call it a creative peak for him to that point.
After the band finished Revolver and embarked on its final, maddening tour, the Beatles took a much-deserved holiday. George, along with his wife Pattie, headed off to India for six weeks.
Not long after their return, the band began the nearly five months of work on what became Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. But this time around, fans only got one George Harrison song/. It marked one of his low points with The Beatles.
Source: cheatsheet.com
Over the years, Paul McCartney added the occasional odd lyric to his Beatles songs. In “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” a song his bandmates genuinely hated, Paul sang about the character Joan studying “pataphysical.” That was a reference to the work of French writer Alfred Jarry and pataphysics.
In “Penny Lane,” the classic song from Magical Mystery Tour, Paul sang about “finger pie.” He said that raunchy lyric was slipped in for the guys of Liverpool to enjoy. (A “four of fish” was apparently a reference to the local cuisine and its prices.)
Many listeners misheard the “finger pie” line (and would have missed the reference anyway). However, another line in “Penny Lane” ended up being misquoted countless times since the track’s 1967 release.
Source: cheatsheet.com
When you're a living legend like Paul McCartney, your discography is a lengthy one, so it goes without saying that the former Beatles bandmate doesn't remember all of his material.
In his new interview with Today, McCartney confessed to Al Roker that it's hard to remember all of his hits after so many years in the game. "Yeah, I have to relearn everything," the 77-year-old musician admitted during the discussion. "I've written an awful lot, so you can't retain them all. We go into rehearsal, and I learn them. 'Oh yeah, that's how it goes.'"
McCartney, who recently wrapped up his "Freshen Up Tour," went on to admit that he's even occasionally surprised by how good some of the material is when he relearns it. "I really do, you know. That's one of the joys of doing some of the old songs. And you say, 'Oh, that's clever. I wouldn't have done that,'" he recalled.
Source: iheart.com
By the end of 1965, The Beatles seemed like a completely different band than the one that took America by storm singing “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” Instead of hand-holding, John Lennon was writing songs like “Nowhere Man” and taking trips down memory lane with “In My Life.”
Along with the new subject matter, the band took a wholly new approach to recording their albums. George Harrison had taken up the sitar and debuted it on John’s classic “Norwegian Wood.” Meanwhile, John had all sorts of tricks for “Girl,” another brilliant tune from Rubber Soul.
On that track, John recorded heavy breathing with the assistance of a compressor in the studio. This being the first Beatles album with the band members as “fully fledged potheads,” many take the inhaling sound as a drug reference.
Source: cheatsheet.com
Scott Freiman has been “deconstructing the Beatles” since 2017; the Tallahassee Film Society will be screening the latest installment in Freiman’s film lecture series this weekend.
The program is in two parts, one focusing on “side one” of the Beatles’ album Abbey Road, the other on the more experimental “side two,” which includes an extended song suite, often called the “Abbey Road” medley, that encompasses most of the album side.
If you’re a Beatles fan, you’ll want to go to Railroad square this weekend. If you’re merely Beatles curious, it’s an excellent and unintimidating place to start. Freiman’s immense knowledge of Beatles lore is balanced by a passion to share what he knows about the band with others.
Ignore the title; Freiman’s Beatles films are no daunting “deconstruction” of the band or its music. The focus is rather on how the Beatles, their record producer George Martin, and a talented crew of recording engineers at EMI studios carefully constructed the sounds that you hear on Beatles records. Freiman’s "Deconstructing the Beatles" series consists of his well-paced, intellectually engaging, and highly interactive lectures before a live audience.
Source: Barry Faulk/tallahassee.com
