Beatles News
The Beatles perform Don't Let Me Down on rooftop 1969
November 20th 1963. The Beatles superfan Jacquie Graham was sixteen years ago and couldn’t get a ticket to the Fab Four’s show in Manchester. Nevertheless, she’s revealed to Express.co.uk in an exclusive interview how she ended up meeting The Beatles thanks to her panda toy. Jacquie can’t quite recall why she had the plush animal with her, but she and her friends tried their luck at the concert venue. She said: “We got to the Apollo. Knocked on the stage door and this chap came out and took the Panda.”
Jacquie continued: “He just took it out of our hands and shut the door.
“We were absolutely furious. Very, very upset.”
As a result, the girls took a taxi to the Daily Mirror in Manchester and explained to the paper what had happened.
They ended up back at the Apollo with a photographer, who managed to get into the venue and retrieve the panda toy – but that’s far from the end of the story.
The Beatles: AMAZING story of how one fan met Fab Four thanks to a stuffed TOY (Image: PHOTOBOX)
Jacquie revealed: “And the next thing we know, we’re invited into the foyer of the Apollo.
“We were interviewed and then led off to another room and they were there!
Source: George Simpson/express.co.uk
With all the turbulence rattling The Beatles by the late ’60s, it’s a small miracle the band lasted (sort of) until 1970. By then, it had been years since the Fab Four quit touring and a good while since they enjoyed the company of one another in the recording studio.
If you read about the recording session for “Come Together,” John Lennon’s biggest hit with The Beatles, you can feel the sadness of Paul McCartney as he describes the date. (Paul wanted to sing backing vocals but felt stupid asking John.)
In this type of situation, the best the four great musicians could do was go out and make careers for themselves. As every fan of their music knows, that’s exactly what they did. And, being who they were, each landed a No. 1 single on the Billboard charts within four years.
Being the people they were, it almost meant there was a competition to be the first to top the charts. “The quiet Beatle” ended up being the one to make it there first.
Source: cheatsheet.com
By August 1964, The Beatles had already gotten a heavy dose of know fame and fortune in America. Fans had lined the streets wherever they went and fainted every time they played a few notes. They’d also sent three Beatles records to No. 1 on the charts within six months of their arrival.
Yet not everyone thought they had staying power. The band that dropped songs like “Love Me Do” and lines like “She loves you / Yeah, yeah, yeah” didn’t exactly knock out the top songwriters of the era.
It would take another year until tunes like “Yesterday” would turn their idol Chuck Berry into a fan. What’s more, even though Bob Dylan saw The Beatles as a force of nature, he kept such thoughts a secret from the hepcats.
“I just kept it to myself that I really dug them,” Dylan told biographer Anthony Scaduto (per Rolling Stone). “Everybody else thought they were just for the teenyboppers.” Yet while everyone knows they revered Dylan, his admiration for The Beatles never got the same mileage.
Source: cheatsheet.com
Rob Lowe told a hilarious story on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Wednesday about being rejected for a selfie by The Beatles icon Paul McCartney, but later changing his mind. Alternative Nation transcribed Lowe’s comments.
“If you want a picture with Paul McCartney, you need to wait right in front of the dressing room when he comes out, because he doesn’t, as I learned, he doesn’t do selfies. He came out, I saw him, he saw me, we greeted each other. I’m at a point now where I don’t give, excuse me, a crap. I’m going to get my photo. He’s Paul McCartney man.”
“I said, ‘Paul, I’ve got to have a selfie, can I do it?’ Here comes the bad impersonation: ‘Well I’m not really doing any selfies, I made it a rule.’ By the way I do a one man show, and when I do my McCartney, I’ve had people yell out, ‘He’s not from India!’ It’s not great.
Source: Brett Buchanan
A Beatles album once owned by John Lennon - and believed to be one of the rarest in the band's history - is up for auction.
The so-called "butcher" cover of Yesterday And Today caused controversy when it was released in the US back in 1966.
It shows the Fab Four smiling, dressed in white coats and covered in pieces of raw meat and decapitated baby dolls.
The cover, believed to be The Beatles' protest against the Vietnam War, was subsequently withdrawn and replaced with more public-friendly artwork.
It is estimated that Lennon's personal copy of the record will sell for £136,000 when it goes under the hammer at Julien's Auctions annual event - Music Icons: The Beatles In Liverpool.
Lennon kept the record on the wall of his apartment in New York and later gave it to Beatles fan Dave Morrell, with the star writing: "To Dave, from John Lennon, Dec 7th 1971."
Source: spiritfm.net
When The Beatles first started out, you knew exactly who led the band. Paul McCartney and John Lennon (already branded Lennon-McCartney) claimed songwriting credits and lead-vocal duties for 10 of the 12 songs appearing on the band’s 1964 Capitol debut.
When both sang in unison on No. 1 tracks like “She Loves You” and “Love Me Do,” you could barely separate the two. Later on, as Paul and John worked more on their own, you could tell the differences between their styles.
On “Hey Jude,” which became The Beatles’ all-time biggest hit, there was no question you were listening to a Paul tune. However, by the time the band had racked up its record 20 No. 1 hits, John had a large number to his name.
Of the eight chart-topping songs John sang lead on, his last chart-topper became his biggest hit with the Fab Four. In fact, only one Beatles tune charted for a longer period.
Source: cheatsheet.com
About two dozens of Czech and foreign artists Monday decorated with the famous Lennon Wall in Prague, capital of the Czech Republic, with new pictures and inscriptions of "love and peace".
The wall, which is the outer side of the park garden opposite the French Embassy building, was a memorial to singer-songwriter John Lennon.
Since the 1980s, it has been filled with John Lennon-inspired graffiti and pieces of lyrics from Beatles' songs. In the past years, it has become one of the most popular tourist attractions in Prague and was seen as a symbol of global ideas such as "love and peace".
The artwork, namely "Meet Art", was co-created by artists from the Czech Republic and those from Slovakia, Serbia, Canada and Sultanate of Oman. Some tourists also contributed their talents. They painted the entire wall with one of the motifs of "All you need is love", title of the Lennon's famous song.
The action aims to return the previous role to the Wall and make passers-by to write their own poems on the wall instead of dirty words and vulgar pictures, said the organizers.
Source: China.org
ohn Lennon's iconic round glasses could sell for more than $20,000 at Omega Auctions (Image: Omega Auctions)
A pair of John Lennon’s iconic round glasses could sell for over $20,000 when they go up for auction in the U.K next week.
The glasses will be offered at Omega Auctions on March 26, as part of a dedicated Beatles sale featuring memorabilia and rare records.
They originate from the private collection of Barry Finch, a designer who worked with The Beatles in the late 1960s as part of a Dutch art collective known as ‘The Fool’.
Lennon gave Finch the glasses in 1967, as the pair collaborated on ideas for the inner sleeve artwork of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Source: news.justcollecting.com
The former Beatles beatkeeper appeared to confirm a 20th solo album was in the works on guitarist Steve Lukather’s Facebook page.
Lukather, who plays in Starr’s All-Starr Band, posted a photo of the group in a recording studio. Starr posted a photo of the pair together on Twitter and wrote “In the studio again with the great Steve Lukather what a guy. Peace and Love.”
The 78-year-old drummer signed a publishing deal with BMG in 2018 that gives the company rights to his solo material and the few tracks he wrote with The Beatles. His last album was 2017’s “Give More Love,” which features the single “So Wrong for So Long." Paul McCartney, Starr’s former Beatles band mate, recorded on two of that album’s tracks. Rock and Roll legends Joe Walsh, Dave Stewart, Jeff Lynne and Peter Frampton also helped out on that project.
Source: Brian Niemietz/nydailynews.com
Whether you go by total record sales, number of hit singles, or overall hysteria levels, The Beatles have been the band to top since the early ’60s. In particular, their album sales (now nearing 185 million copies) set a mark we doubt anyone can beat.
Once they went their separate ways, each former member of The Beatles scored multiple No. 1 singles on their own. However, when the band was together, you find the Lennon-McCartney songwriting duo handling most of the lead-singing duties on the band’s top hits.
In George Harrison’s case, it took until Abbey Road (The Beatles’ last studio record) to get the lead vocal on a No. 1 (“Something,” which George wrote). As for Ringo, the closest the band’s drummer got was No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts as lead vocalist.
Bu if you look at the Fab Four’s 20 chart-topping hits, you find something unusual: John Lennon and Paul McCartney can claim an almost equal number of No. 1 hits on lead vocals.
Source: cheatsheet.com
