Beatles News
For a Beatles fan, attending a recreation of the Beatles last public rooftop concert from atop of a building in Liverpool is dream come true, and the recent Monday night concert last week on August 26 with perfect sunny weather was a once in a lifetime experience.
Jon Keats, Cavern City Tours Director and performer, led the audience in shouting "Hello Liverpool, We Love the Beatles" from the rooftop was sheer joy, along with taking in the fabulous performances by three different bands that started at 6:30 pm and ended sharply at the 10 pm curfew.
A picture tells a thousand words and the International BeatleWeek Rooftop concert from the top of the Shankly Hotel in downtown Liverpool says it all, with the landmark Royal Liver building in the background.
Source: Katie Hickox, Beatles News Liverpool correspondent
Todd Rundgren, Christopher Cross and the Monkees’ Micky Dolenz will lead an all-star cast of rockers paying tribute to The Beatles’ “White Album” in a tour that visits the Palace Theatre on Nov. 30.
Jason Scheff, vocalist for the band Chicago, and Joey Molland, guitarist from Badfinger, round out the lineup.
Tickets for the 7:30 p.m. concert will range from $59.75 to $79.75, increasing by $5.25 the day of the show. Tickets to the general public go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday at ThePalaceTheatre.org or by calling the Palace box office at 724-836-8000. A promoter presale begins at 10 a.m. Thursday via Eventbrite.com with the passcode “PALACE”.
Along with Beatles “White Album” selections such as “Helter Skelter,” “Back in The U.S.S.R.,” “Blackbird” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” the artists will mix in their own hits. So Cross could sing “Sailing” or “Ride Like the Wind,” and Rundgren could do “Bang The Drum All Day” and “Hello It’s Me.”
Source: Scott Tady
Within music, few artists are universally sacred. To some, Bob Dylan’s voice is intolerable, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon is overwrought and Patti Smith’s Horses is pretentious caterwauling. But for every venerated act that’s enriched popular culture, no one has remained as monolithic as The Beatles. Ever since Decca infamously passed on them in 1962, The Fab Four experienced a well-documented rise to international superstardom that has never really ceased.
A harmonious marriage between songwriting acumen and marketability, we may have escaped the mass hysteria that propagated ’60s Beatlemania, but their legacy is viewed as largely beyond reproach. Cited as the year-zero for countless genres, this widespread canonization means that some new body-art has caused an uproar in recent weeks.
Source: Robert Blair/highsnobiety.com
Respected Beatles historian and author, Bruce Spizer, recently announced the imminent release of his 11th book on The Beatles, The Beatles Get Back to Abbey Road, a 50th Anniversary celebration of the landmark album. Through essays by Beatles scholars such as Al Sussman, Jude Southerland Kessler, Frank Daniels, and Piers Hemmingsen, as well as a wealth of information from the author himself, Spizer supplies the complete history of the Abbey Road LP, brought to life via color and original black-and-white images. Once again, as with Spizer's Sgt. Pepper and White Album books, he includes a delightful section of both celebrity and fan memories and photos.
On Friday, September 20, Spizer will be honored with a Book Release Party during Beatles at the Ridge in Walnut Ridge, AR, where he is a Featured Speaker for the 2019 BATR Authors and Artists Symposium. Spizer will address symposium attendees, joining a panel of noted Beatles scholars such as Featured Author Jim Berkenstadt and Featured Artist Ken Orth, as well as Lanea Stagg, Sara Schmidt, Patti Gallo-Stenman, Terry Crain, James Ryan, Susan Ryan, Jude Southerland Kessler, Terri Whitney, and artist Rande Kessler.
Source: beatlesnews.com
By 1969, Frank Sinatra had done his best work as a singer and actor. His groundbreaking albums on Columbia, Capitol, and Reprise (his own label) had gone out at various points over the previous 25 years. And Sinatra’s incredible run as an actor wouldn’t continue into the ’70s.
However, Sinatra still had a lot left in the tank. Anyone who’s seen his 1974 MSG performance (part of his “comeback”) can attest to the crackling energy in the building that night. But at the same time, it was clear the Chairman of the Board was on the downswing of his career.
After all, the ’60s had belonged to The Beatles. By ’69, the Fab Four’s incredible run of No. 1 hits had made mincemeat of chart and sales records set by performers who’d come before. In 1970, Sinatra acknowledged the band’s greatness as songwriters by covering a tune from Abbey Road (1969).
Source: cheatsheet.com
During the Beatles’ epic run, it wasn’t unusual for George Harrison or Ringo to sing a song written by John Lennon and/or Paul McCartney. Early on, you’ll find George singing “Do You Want to Know a Secret,” a song penned by John.
Later, you couldn’t miss Ringo belting out “With a Little Help From My Friends” on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band or “Yellow Submarine” on the film soundtrack of the same name. (Ringo normally got at least one song to sing on each album.)
By the time they were recording The White Album (1968), George didn’t need John or Paul to write music for him; he had more than enough songs of his own. Even Ringo wrote a song (“Don’t Pass Me By”) for that classic two-disc release.
However, Ringo got another song from John to sing on The White Album — the sweet “Good Night” that served as the closer. Some believed John would have sang it better on his own.
Source: cheatsheet.com
Ringo Starr, the famed Beatles drummer and two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee returned to The Celebirity Theatre in Phoenix on August 26th with his All Starr Band – his first appearance at the theater in the round since a headlining show there in 2016. On this particular Monday, local Arizona night music fans had a choice between seeing Starr or The Rolling Stones at the Cardinals’ football stadium crosstown in Glendale. It was a difficult choice, but this choice was very rewarding.
The experience at the Celebrity Theatre was a very different experience in more ways than one. It has a much more intimate ambiance with a seating capacity of 2650. The stage is in the round and rotates throughout the show. Each fan had an opportunity to view the show up close and personal. The downside is that from any angle in the theatre, you are viewing the back of the band for half of the show. The show was sold out and it was obvious that everyone present was thrilled to be in the presence of a living Beatle.
Source: Mary Andrews/glidemagazine.com
There’s a lot of received wisdom floating around when it comes to the demise of The Beatles and their varying solo careers.
When it comes to George, the story goes like this. Fed up of playing understudy in The Beatles, he spent the band’s final year’s stockpiling incredible tunes that couldn’t get a look in on Lennon and McCartney dominated albums and singles. He then released an amazing triple album, All Things Must Pass, and briefly became the most successful former fab.
He used his cultural currency to organise the first major charity concert, The Concert For Bangladesh, roping in some rockstar mates. After that it was diminishing returns with George letting his solo career trail off to concentrate on producing movies, driving fast cars and shagging Ringo Starr’s wife. Most people know he had a big eighties hit with Got My Mind Set On You and not much else.
Source whatculture.com
By the spring of 1967, The Beatles were as close to the top of the world as could be. They’d been racking up No. 1 singles and albums for three years straight and had annihilated whatever box-office records existed for bands on tour.
In short, they could do whatever they wanted, and they figured they’d use up some of that credit. After leaving touring behind for good, they decided to make the ultimate studio record. That album, which became Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, took an unprecedented five months to record.
With “A Day in the Life” and other brilliant tracks already down, The Beatles knew they had another masterpiece on their hands. So John Lennon thought it was a perfect time to push the envelope. That’s when he came up with a song based on a tagline from a London phone book.
As Paul McCartney recalled, John didn’t have lyrics beyond “You know my name, look up the number.”
Source: cheatsheet.com
If you’re a Beatles fan who’s curious about what the Fab Four had on their mind for any particular song, that information is often available. For example, George Harrison spoke of writing “Savoy Truffle” for his friend Eric Clapton (who had quite the sweet tooth).
John Lennon also wasn’t shy about revealing where he’d gotten ideas for his songs. Take the landmark “In My Life” from Rubber Soul. On that track, John was responding to a journalist who asked why John didn’t include memories from his life in his lyrics.
Paul McCartney has also been willing to talk about the inspiration for his tunes. On “Helter Skelter,” for example, Paul wanted to make a hard-rocking song and simply added lyrics referencing an English fairground ride.
When it came to “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window,” John thought Paul had written the track about his first wife, Linda. However, it seems Paul wrote the song about a fan who broke into his home.
Source: cheatsheet.com
