Beatles News
John Lennon’s battle with then-U.S. President Richard Nixon is well-known – but a recently-discovered telegram revealed that fellow Beatle George Harrison also had an angry exchange with the shamed leader’s administration.
Author Chip Madinger discovered the paperwork while researching the 2015 book Lennonology: Strange Days Indeed. He used a Freedom of information request to view Lennon’s file held by the Immigration and Naturalization Service after his long fight to be allowed to settle in the U.S. in the early ‘70s. Madinger also requested Harrison’s file.
“George came to the States in March of '73 for the Apple meetings and to work on the Ringo [Starr] album," he told Billboard in a new interview. “He came in from Pakistan and was detained at the airport. And they went through some 'he said and she said' and but eventually was allowed to come into the States. And I believe he was given permission to stay until June 1 and he was looking for more time.”
Source: ultimateclassicrock.com
Looking back, it’s easy to think of The Beatles as a sure thing. In 1963, the band featured three bona fide lead singers, two talented songwriters, and the swagger to electrify crowds. However, Paul McCartney didn’t think it was enough to take America by storm.
“We mustn’t go to America until we’ve got a No. 1 record,” Paul recalled telling Brian Epstein, The Beatles’ manager, at the time. Though the band would go on to rack up an unthinkable 20 chart-topping singles, the first one wasn’t easy to come by.
During the interviews for Anthology, Paul described “From Me to You,” a previous single, as a “flop” in America. He didn’t want the band to arrive and end as an opening act for singers like Fabian (!), as the lesser British bands had to do during that era. He wanted to arrive on top.
When Epstein and the band saw the success of “I Want to Hold Your Hand” in the UK, they knew they had their “in.” In December of ’63, upon the single’s release in America, it sold 750,000 copies in three days. Soon enough, the Fab Four would have its first No. 1 in the States.
Source: cheatsheet.com
Money — that’s what they want for a piano once used by legendary Beatle John Lennon to crank out some of his biggest hits.
An upright piano on which Lennon once wrote tunes for the Beatles’ iconic Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is up for auction and is expected to fetch up to $1.2 million.
The John Broadwood and Sons piano, which dates back to 1872, is believed to have been in Lennon’s possession since 1966 and was said to be his favorite, according to the Gotta Have Rock and Roll auction site.
Lennon used the instrument to write hits like “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and “A Day in the Life” at his Kenwood estate, which he sold in 1968 amid a divorce from first wife Cynthia Lennon.
The “Imagine” singer eventually handed the piano off to a friend, but not before adorning it with a plaque that told of its storied history, according to the auction site.
Source: People
Sir Paul McCartney impacts the Hot Tours list dated April 6, 2019 with $17.8 million from four South American shows, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. He returned to Buenos Aires at Campo Argentino de Polo on March 23 ($5.4 million), before heading to Sao Paolo’s Allianz Parque on March 26-27 ($8.7 million) and Estadio Major Antonio Couto Pererira in Curitiba, Brazil on March 30 ($3.7 million).
With these recent grosses, McCartney’s solo career touring total in Latin America — as reported to Billboard Boxscore — grows to $101 million. Of that total, he has earned $21.5 million in Argentina (four shows) and $47.8 million in Brazil (10 shows). His recent shows at Allianz Parque are his first double-header in Brazil and as such, become his highest-grossing engagement in the country. These dates top this week’s Boxscore chart, only the second time he has done so in LatAm, following two shows at Mexico City’s Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on Nov. 25 and 27, 1993 ($6.5 million).
Source: Eric Frankenberg/billboard.com
The following gallery of Ringo Starr's 10 Most Historic Moments recognizes a career that took a while to gain the respect it always deserved.
Starr seldom sang with the Beatles – just 11 songs total – and, with only two songwriting credits, he didn't pen much either. But that's hardly the sum of his value within the band's larger musical framework.
Instead, it's the way Starr drove others' musical conceptions, completing the Beatles' songs in a way as unusual (he's a left-handed drummer who plays a right-handed kit) as it was underrated. Just listen to Starr's smart eruptions on "She Loves You," "Ticket to Ride" and "Rain," the innovative fills that punctuate "A Day in the Life," the off-beat aggression of "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "Helter Skelter," the lithe jazz asides on "I Want You (She's So Heavy)."
The other Beatles knew it, even if too few outside of their circle did at the time. Even Paul McCartney has noted that Ringo's arrival "was the beginning, really, of the Beatles."
Source: ultimateclassicrock.com
Paul McCartney died in a road accident and was replaced by an orphan lookalike, according to a wild conspiracy theory.
Believers reckon the Beatles frontman suffered a painful death when his car skidded off an icy road and hit a pole in the early hours of November 9, 1966.
And as the story goes, his bandmates John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were so worried that his death would derail their success that they covered it up and hired orphaned lookalike Billy Shears to replace him.
Billy gets a mention at the end of the title track of their June 1967 album Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, where the lyrics say, “The singer’s going to sing a song / And he wants you all to sing along / So let me introduce to you / The one and only Billy Shears .”
Source: The Mirror
John Lennon, singing-songwriting sensation and iconic co-founder of the Beatles, is undoubtedly one of the greatest musicians of all time.
Alongside Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison, Lennon successfully built the most commercially successful band in the history of popular music and inspired countless future musicians.
After calling time on the Beatles, Lennon began to record as a solo artist and later recorded numerous tracks with his wife Yoko Ono. What followed a string of hugely successful solo tracks was Lennon’s decision to seemingly disengaging himself from the music industry in 1975 to raise his infant son Sean.
After a little time away, the Beatle re-emerged in 1980 alongside his wife Ono with their 1980 album Double Fantasy and, with it, he was thrust back into the spotlight.
Source: faroutmagazine.co.uk
After blasting into solo-Beatledom in fine style with 1970’s mega-selling "All Things Must Pass," George Harrison had also begun a long, slow spiral into a protracted period of ill health and personal despair. For the Quiet Beatle, life reached its nadir in 1974 with the breakup of his marriage to Pattie Boyd. While his "Thirty Three & 1/3" LP notched a top-30 hit in the form of “This Song” in January 1977, Harrison had found himself in dire straits.
The ex-Beatle’s slide had begun, ironically enough, with the release of his global chart-topping single “My Sweet Lord.” Since 1971, he had been mired in a lengthy legal battle with Bright Tunes Music, which maintained that Harrison had committed copyright infringement, given the uncanny similarities between “My Sweet Lord” and the Chiffons’ 1963 hit “He’s So Fine.” Written during the legal jockeying over the fate of “My Sweet Lord,” “This Song” found Harrison singing “This tune has nothing Bright about it” in obvious reference to the plaintiff.
Source: salon.com
New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art is filled with masterpieces by giants like Picasso and Rembrandt. Next week, Don Felder's Gibson double-necked guitar will join them. It's the instrument Felder has used for 40 years to play "Hotel California," the masterpiece he co-wrote for The Eagles.
And it will be shown along with Keith Moon's custom drum set, Jerry Lee Lewis' baby grand piano, and John Lennon's 12-string Rickenbacker, at the Met's new exhibition, "Play It Loud." It's the first time an art museum has honored the instruments of rock 'n' roll
Jayson Kerr Dobney, curator of the Met's musical instrument department, showed correspondent Anthony Mason the guitar that Chuck Berry used to record "Johnny B. Goode," which he called "first great rock anthem about a guitar player."
"He's still got the traveling tags on the case," said Mason.
"It's like as pure as you can get."
Source: cbsnews.com
A piece of Beatles history is up for grabs, but it's so old -- or vintage -- it goes by a different name.
If ya don't know ... John Lennon's first band wasn't The Beatles, it was The Quarry Men. He formed the group in 1956, later added Paul McCartney and George Harrison ... then made their famous name change in 1960.
Before that, though, the lads from Liverpool printed out business cards for The Quarry Men and an original -- one of just a few known to exist -- is up for sale. That's the good news. The bad news is ... baby, you'll need to be a rich man (or woman) to afford it.
The roughly 3.5 x 2-inch piece of paper and rock 'n' roll history is going for $32,500.
As for the card's origin story ... a collector bought it from a woman living in a Liverpool suburb 30 years ago. She sold off a bunch of membership cards and tickets she'd collected from her days hitting the clubs there in the late '50s and '60s.
Source: tmz.com
