Beatles News
Bob Dylan’s influence on the shape of British music has been examined in great detail by a new historian.
Tudor Jones, an academic historian with a strong background in political historian and honorary research, has collected his new study into a book titled Bob Dylan And The British Sixties and details Dylan’s significant impact on some of Britain’s most acclaimed icons.
Jones details how Dylan significantly influenced Beatles duo John Lennon and George Harrison as well as The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger. Dylan’s far-reaching influence also had a prominent effect on Pete Townshend of The Who.
“Dylan’s influence on songwriting in modern British popular culture during the 1960s was profound and far-reaching,” says Jones who has vast experience having conducted research through Coventry University.
Source: Far Out Staff/faroutmagazine.co.uk
On January 30 1969, The Beatles — the band that had reshaped popular music and culture in a creative arc of only eight years (and with whom I had worked for that entire dizzying period) — played an impromptu show in London, immortalised as “the rooftop concert”.
The six-song set was staged atop 3 Savile Row, the building we had bought as the headquarters for their adventurous multimedia company, Apple Corps. Although none of us realised it at the time, it was to be their final live performance as a band. And as far as rock shows go, it was a great one.
On that freezing rooftop in London, I saw and heard everything that was great about The Beatles. The humour, the look (John and Ringo wore their wives’ coats for the performance) and, of course, the music. But I also saw the frayed ends and the bitterness that was already spilling out in my office at Apple, where I had been appointed as executive director the year before, having spent most of the 1960s at Brian Epstein’s management company.
Source: Peter Brown /ft.com
A newly discovered letter from 1968 reveals a label exec's concerns about its pornographic overtones
The Beatles’ ‘Hey Jude’ was almost shelved as a single thanks to its “pornographic” vinyl cover.
That’s according to details in a newly discovered letter written by a Capitol Records executive to Apple Records.
Capitol Records’ president Stan Gortikov had warned the Beatles’ imprint not to release the record because its vinyl logo – the profile of a sliced apple – resembled a vagina. Gortikov was worried that traders would not want to stock the single.
As The Independent reports, Gortikov wrote in a letter dated 28 August 1968: “Here’s a wild and unanticipated problem to brighten up your day I just received a call from a very large and influential rack jobber in the western United States.
“He opened the conversation by saying, ‘Are you guys serious? Do you know what you’re doing? Do you really intend to sell products bearing the new Apple label?’”
Source: Charlotte Krol/nme.com
The later albums may now get more respect, but it was the early Beatles who first conquered the world.
This was the era when the Fab Four played live, before escaping into the studio. Sadly, they often couldn’t be heard over the screaming, as many people who went and saw them at the Gaumont in Ipswich and the Grosvenor Rooms in Norwich have recalled.
But all that hysteria wasn’t just because of the moptop haircuts and collarless jackets. It was also about the music, with its fresh, innovative feel.
Born in 1960, I was just a few years too young to enjoy those early recordings as they were released, or to go and scream at John, Paul, George and Ringo when they visited East Anglia. But I discovered the music later, and still love it.
During a visit to Liverpool a couple of years back, I heard tribute acts performing some of those early songs in the reconstructed Cavern Club, and it really gave a feeling of why the Merseybeat sound caused so much excitement at the time.
Source: Judy Rimmer/edp24.co.uk
Judas Priest members Glenn Tipton and Rob Halford spoke in an interview with Metal Hammer. They talked about how they created “Living After Midnight” from 80’s British Steel album.
Glenn Tipton said:
“We had gone into Tittenhurst Park, the home of Ringo Starr, who had bought it from John Lennon, after a previous attempt at another studio, and with only half of its songs written. Until that point, we’d never worked that way before.
“I’ll always recall that 1980 was a great summer, and being in such an inspirational surrounding definitely rubbed off on us. What came out was a set of very simple yet effective songs that, I’d like to think, helped to shape what else was going on [in heavy rock music] at the time.
Source: Feyyaz Ustaer/metalheadzone.com
For many years Sir Paul fought off the telltale sign of ageing by colouring his hair a rich chestnut brown, but now he has decided to embrace the natural look.
Last September he appeared on US TV with salt'n'pepper locks, below, that revealed hints of grey for the first time.
Fans commended him for his new look saying he "should have done it years ago" and that he looked like a "stunning silver fox".
When Paul, John Lennon, Sir Ringo Starr and George Harrison first found success in the 1960s they were almost as famous for their mop-top hair cuts as they were for their early hits.
But by the time they released Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967 the Fab Four each had their own individual hippy style.
Source: Frances Millar/express.co.uk
The team at Vanity Fair have commissioned a twelve-minute, 25 000 miles-long Magical Mystery Tour of every place mentioned in Beatles lyrics throughout their entire discography, from Eleanor Rigby’s gravestone in Liverpool to the Black Mountain Hills of South Dakota in America’s mid-west.The video begins in Liverpool and takes viewers on a tour through Penny Lane, Strawberry Field and John Lennon’s and Paul McCartney‘s childhood homes (with no mention of George or Ringo). The tour pays a brief visit to the Cavern Club where the band played their first shows, heads down to the Mersey “cast iron shore” before jetting to Scotland for the Kirkaldy mentioned in Cry Baby Cry.
Source: hhhhappy.com
Something for the weekend: With December’s pre-Christmas payday feeling a lifetime ago, and a long time to wait before employees can say ‘here comes the sun’, many will be starting the new year with a negative mindset, suffering from high stress levels, or struggling with mental ill health.
However, research by bingo and slot operator Mecca Bingo has found that songs by Liverpudlian band The Beatles are most likely to get employees’ toes tapping, boosting both productivity and happiness at work.
Its survey of 2,000 UK individuals further found that tunes performed by legendary artists such as Elton John, David Bowie and Elvis Presley can also help shield employees from the January blues, with these iconic stars rocking the second, third and fourth places on Mecca Bingo’s Top five songs for the office playlist to boost productivity and happiness at work list.
Yorkshire songster Ed Sheeran came fifth in the final list, with songs such as The A Team, Perfect and Shape of You shown to improve employees’ moods.
Source: employeebenefits.co.uk
Edward Morrison after being nominated for governor by the New York State Liberal Party in 1974. He turned out to be a stand-in, however: The Liberals endorsed Hugh L. Carey, after Mr. Carey won the Democratic nomination.
Edward A. Morrison, a former New York deputy mayor whose avowal that John Lennon was a valuable cultural asset to the city helped Lennon avoid deportation in the 1970s, died on Saturday in Ocala, Fla. He was 85.
His son Andrew said the cause was congestive heart failure.
Mr. Morrison, a lawyer, was among the advisers to Lennon and his wife, the artist and singer Yoko Ono, when Lennon’s residency in the United States was challenged by the Nixon administration in 1972.
He was also a friend of the couple’s; Lennon and Ms. Ono had attended Mr. Morrison’s swearing-in as deputy mayor in 1972.
Source: nytimes.com
The Beatles bassist Paul McCartney has announced his new children’s book ‘Hey Grandude!’. The book is Paul’s first picture book and will be published in September 2019.
He has shared the mini video of the book on Instagram and wrote:
“I’m excited to share the cover of my new children’s book Hey Grandude! which will be out later this year. I’ve worked on this with a great illustrator called @KathrynDurst and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!”😃
Back in September 2018, he talked about the book and said:
“I’ve written a new children’s picture book. It’s called Hey Grandude!… I wanted to write it for grandparents everywhere, so it gives them something to read to the grandkids at bedtime.”
Source: Feyyaz Ustaer/metalheadzone.com
