Beatles News
Pete Best, The Beatles’ original drummer, has made his dramatic stage debut in the new comedy Lennon’s Banjo, which had its world premiere in Liverpool on Wednesday (25) and has received rave reviews (photo: Anthony Robling).
Best has played himself in two performances and will return for one more on the final night of the show’s two-week run at the Epstein Theatre on 5 May. Based on the 2012 novel Julia’s Banjo, written by Rob Fennah and Helen A. Jones, the play (directed by Mark Heller) depicts the quest for the missing banjo on which John Lennon was first taught to play music by his mother Julia. The banjo went missing shortly after Julia’s death.
Source: Paul Sexton/udiscovermusic.com
The estate of George Harrison has launched a new record label, HariSongs, that will focus on Indian classical and world music. The label was launched in partnership with Craft Recordings and will cull releases from the Harrison family archives, including the former Beatle's collaborations with some of the most famous Indian musicians.
The label's first two projects will be reissues of two recently out-of-print records: Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan's In Concert 1972 and Shankar's collaboration with Harrison, Chants of India. Both albums are available to stream and download today, April 27th.
Chants of India originally arrived in 1997 via Angel Records. Harrison produced the album, which Shankar recorded in Madras, India and Henley-on-Thames in the United Kingdom. The project found Shankar drawing inspiration from sacred Sanskrit texts, including the Vedas and Upanishads. The audio for this reissue was sourced and remastered from the original digital master tapes.
Source: Jon Blistein/rollingstone.com
It was “lousy” and “delicious”– a “mistake” and a “uniquely calm and creative oasis”. For The Beatles, the world’s most famous, successful and influential pop group, it was the beginning of the end.
At the end of April 1968, 50 years ago, George Harrison landed in England after 10 weeks studying with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Rishikesh, northern India. With the Vietnam War escalating and student protests threatening to break out across the US and Europe, the Fab Four withdrew from the fray to study transcendental meditation.
The Beatles were changed by it, for good and bad, and so too was the world, albeit in quieter, smaller ways. The group’s sojourn in the Himalayas was a pivotal moment in the relations between Eastern and Western hemispheres and laid a blueprint for the modern mass-media event.
Source: thenational.ae
In 1956 Julia Lennon showed her son John how she played the banjo and he copied her fingering on his cheap guitar. Julia Lennon was killed in a car accident in July 1958 and nobody, it would seem, knows where her banjo is now. Its value to a collector would be immense, but surely not the £5m suggested in this production.
The fate of Julia’s banjo is the premise for a new play written by Rob Fennah and staged at the Epstein Theatre, the former Neptune Theatre renamed after the Beatles’ manager. The experienced cast have been in some of our favourite TV series, the best-known being Mark Moraghan of Holby City.
A Beatles tour guide and ardent fan, Barry Seddon (Eric Potts), finds a letter written by John Lennon in 1962, cryptically describing where he has hidden the banjo. With two friends (Moraghan and Jake Abraham) who run a souvenir store, they attempt to solve the puzzle. But they need to get into the mind of John Lennon to do that, and “he wrote ‘I Am The Walrus’, for fuck’s sake.” The clever solution depends on information that the audience cannot know: it would have been better if we stood a chance of solving it too.
Source: SPENCER LEIGH/independent.co.uk
I hear that your were 16 or so when you wrote the Beatles hit “When I’m 64.”
Having just attained the title age, I feel qualified to offer this critique of the lyrics:
When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now.
Oh, Paul, such youthful idealism. Male pattern baldness does not begin at 64. If it did, there would be far fewer toupees in the world. The more appropriate age would be 44, if not 34 or — in some cases — even 24.
Will you still be sending me a valentine, birthday greeting, bottle of wine?
I can take or leave the valentine. But, by all means, let’s get the order correct for the wine and birthday greeting. Send the bottle first — it will make the reminder that I’m another year older a bit easier to take.
And maybe don’t say which birthday. After 50, it’s best to just recognize the ones ending in zero and leave the rest to speculation.
If I’d been out till quarter to three, would you lock the door?
Where do I start?
Source: Joe Blundo/Entertainment & Life
These boys from Liverpool are known as the Fab Four. Welcome to WatchMojo.com and today we’re counting down the picks for the Top 10 Beatles Songs.
For this list, we’ve chosen our entries based on a combination of the artist’s fan favorites and their most commercially successful songs.
#10: “In My Life”
Rubber Soul (1965)
It’s partly thanks to George Martin that this Rubber Soul track has its baroque pop feel. The producer contributed piano to this gentle but memorable number that shows a more personal side to John Lennon. Arguments with Paul McCartney about who contributed what don’t take away from the fact that the Beatles were able to capture a beautiful melody and showcase the band’s evolving sound in just two-and-a-half minutes.
#9: “Something”
Abbey Road (1969)
It doesn’t get more romantic than this: with George Harrison at the helm, this gorgeous rock and pop number proved the Quiet Beatle was more than just a talented guitarist. Fans fell so in love with “Something” that it topped the American charts. With Harrison’s sweet vocals complemented by a string arrangement and an instrumental break, the three-minute tune is also one of the Fab Four’s most covered songs.
#8: “Strawberry Fields Forever”
“Strawberry Fields Forever / Penny Lane” Single (1967)
With its psychedelic pop and rock flavors, this single was really able to bring the magic and wonder of Strawberry Fields to life. Inspired by Lennon’s childhood memories, it shared the A-side with McCartney’s “Penny Lane” and stood out for its distinctive musical structure and use of the mellotron and Indian harp. After putting in 45 hours of recording time, the band was rewarded with a top 10 smash and a Beatles classic.
Source: watchmojo.com
What’s your favorite Beatles song? Is it a classic like “Eight Days a Week” or “All You Need is Love”? One of Paul McCartney’s dreamy, singable ballads like “Eleanor Rigby,” or a John Lennon dreamscape like “I Am the Walrus”? Deep cuts like “You Know My Name”? The Beatles are the biggest band in history for a reason. They wrote seemingly endless hits—so many incredible songs that score our favorite memories. Experience all the best Beatles songs at Rain—A Tribute to the Beatles this May at the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden! This concert tours around the country and will only be in New York the first weekend of May! Celebrating the recent 50th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (which was released May 26, 1967, by the way), the cast of Rain will perform the legendary album in its entirety, complete with brightly colored uniforms and feathered hats.
Source: Merrill Lee Girardeau,cityguideny.com
A prominent member of the iconic British band Beatles, George Harrison, was one of the main coordinators of the Concert for Bangladesh, held at Madison Square Garden, New York, on 1 August 1971 to raise international awareness and funds for Bangladesh's liberation war. Harrison ended the concert with the song 'Bangladesh, Bangladesh'. The simplicity of the lyrics takes on a new and powerful force. For by then, they are no longer an expression of intent but of an accomplished mission — help has been given, people have been reached, an effort has been made and results will be felt.
With such names as Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Leon Russell, and finally, Bob Dylan, involved, the concert would have been an enormous success no matter how it was planned or run. But part of the record's beauty is that Harrison staged a concert worthy of his purpose in every respect.
Source: Jahanara Tariq/thedailystar.net
Liverpool City Council is proposing a regeneration area around Mathew Street, where the Cavern Club - which hosted the band's early shows - once stood. The aim was to bring an "enhanced and more co-ordinated Beatles tourism offer" to the area, the council said.
City Mayor Joe Anderson said there was a need to improve the area's 24-hour appeal as the current offer was "not at the level it could and should be". The plans could involve the redevelopment of derelict and under-used buildings and the creation of a "more defined and useable public open space". If approved, the regeneration work would focus on the area from Victoria and North John Street to Lord Street and Stanley Street.
The council said the city's "Beatles-related industry" had been growing at up to 15% annually in the last decade and was worth £90m a year. A spokesman said Cavern City Tours and the Cavern Club, the venue built on the site of its namesake nightclub using the original plans, now attracted 800,000 visitors a year. However, a report to the council said visitors were "increasingly looking for a quality experiential visit" and there was "a clear need to curate a Beatles Heritage offer".
Source:BBC News
In April 1976, Paul and Linda McCartney were on a month’s break from the Wings Over the World tour, which would head to North America in May for Paul’s first shows there since the Beatles’ final US gig in August 1966. Photographer David Montgomery, who had also shot the cover for Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland, captured the McCartney clan – including sheepdog Martha and Lucky the dalmatian – in what looks like bucolic bliss, but is in fact the back garden of their London home in Cavendish Avenue.
Animals were a huge part of family life. Paul has often said that he and Linda became vegetarian after watching lambs gambolling outside their farm window. They pushed their lamb chops aside, and that was the end of their meat-eating days. “It is because we like animals, it’s an ethical thing, not really about health,” Paul told Nigel Slater in 2007.
Source: Campbell Stevenson/theguardian.com
