Beatles News
George Harrison is today best remembered as the spiritual Beatle, but when he wrote "Blue Jay Way,” he was still helping invent rock star protocol. The Beatles already formed rock music from the Cavern they were carved in, and Harrison lived the lifestyle to its fullest. He was single the longest, married a model – perennial musical muse Pattie Boyd, rented rich people’s houses in the Hollywood Hills and went slumming in Haight-Ashbury. He was the youngest Beatle, born on Feb. 25, 1943. For what would have been Harrison’s 75th birthday, the band’s official Vevo YouTube site dropped the music video for “Blue Jay Way.” The clip is an excerpt of The Beatles' 1967 television film Magical Mystery Tour.
Source: denofgeek.com
A motorcycle once owned by Beatles legend John Lennon has fetched a record-breaking £57,500 at auction.
The 1969 Honda Z50A Monkey Bike sold for almost double the estimated £30,000 when it went under the hammer at the National Motorcycle Museum in Solihull.
Lennon used the bike to get around his Tittenhurst Park estate in Berkshire, where he lived from 1969 to 1971.
It was sold by John Harington, who had owned it for 47 years and displayed it at various shows.
He bought the bike from Henry Graham, of Hook, Hampshire, who said he had bought the motorbike from Lennon when he was living at Tittenhurst Park.
The successful bid on Sunday is the highest price ever paid at a public auction for a Honda Monkey Bike.
Source: BBC News
The Beatles members forewent a journey of fame and fortune during their lives, but not without a struggle.
Visiting Scholar Walter Everett, Professor of Music Theory from the University of Michigan, gave a presentation March 6 about unfolding the psychology and success of the fab-four. Katie Kapurch, assistant professor of English, invited Everett to speak at Texas State. She met Everett at a Beatles conference at Penn State in 2014. She said after he read one of her publications, they decided to collaborate because they shared similar interests related to the representation of sex, sexuality and gender in pop culture.
Kapurch said they have contracted with Bloomsbury for a book with the working title, “Sex and Gender in Rock and Pop from the Beatles to Beyoncé”. The free co-sponsored event featured a presentation that delved into the composition of the 1967 single “Strawberry Fields Forever”. Everett has published an acclaimed two-volume book “The Beatles as Musicians” and stands at the forefront of scholarly research on The Beatles.
Source: Diana Furman/star.txstate.edu
The Beatles were arguably one of the greatest and most talented rock groups of all time. Consisting of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, this unassuming quartet arguably changed the face of popular music completely thanks to the music they crafted during their nine-year stint.
But have you ever wondered how far the apple fell from the tree? With Ringo’s son, Zak Starkey, hitting up Melbourne for a couple of shows with his band SSHH this weekend, we’ve decided to take a look at the musical careers undertaken by the offspring of one of music’s greatest groups.
Source: Tyler Jenke/tonedeaf.com.au
As hairdresser to the Beatles in the 1960s, Leslie Cavendish was exposed to sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. However, working for Vidal Sassoon, the most famous hairdresser of the time, he was under strict instructions that the female clientele – including Jane Asher, Mary Quant and singer Shirley Bassey – were off limits. And drugs didn’t float his boat. But rock n’ roll and the Beatles were a dream come true.
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In his recently-published book, The Cutting Edge: The Story of the Beatles’ Hairdresser Who Defined An Era, Cavendish (who is pictured below, strumming the Gretsch guitar John Lennon used during the recording of Paperback Writer), lifts the lid not just on Beatlemania, but also on popular culture in an era when the BBC only played “safe and proper” music by artists speaking “the Queen’s equerry”.
Source: By Alex Galbinski/jewishnews.timesofisrael.com
They have been madly in love for more than a decade. And keeping the romance alive, 75-year-old Paul McCartney enjoyed an intimate lunch with Nancy Shevel, 58, on Tuesday in Beverly Hills.
The casually-clad rocker shielded his eyes with a pair of sunglasses as he made a low-key exit from the eatery ahead of his wife.Read more:The casually-clad rocker shielded his eyes with a pair of sunglasses as he made a low-key exit from the eatery ahead of his wife. Meanwhile, Nancy cut a casual figure in a dark hoodie and cut-off trousers which she teamed with trainers for their afternoon date. The wife of the musician displayed her natural age-defying beauty when she scraped her brunette tresses into a bun and shielded her eyes with sunglasses.
Source: Daily Mail
As we've pointed out (over and over and over again), George Harrison and Eric Clapton continued to work together long after those mythic days of "Sour Milk Sea," "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and "Badge." This is especially true of the early Seventies and the late Eighties, when Clapton appeared on Harrison's Cloud Nine (1987) and Harrison appeared on Clapton's Journeyman (1989).
When the pair toured Japan together in 1991, Harrison's set was packed with a crowd-pleasing assortment of Beatles tunes (it was the first time Harrison had performed Beatles songs in Japan since 1966). Among the highlights each night was "Taxman," which originally appeared on the Beatles' Revolver (1966), and which the Beatles never performed live.
Above, you can watch Harrison and Clapton tackle the classic Harrison-penned tune. Harrison plays an attractive Clarence White-esque Telecaster while Clapton plays the solo on a Strat. You'll notice that Slowhand starts off the solo with a nod to Paul McCartney's blistering original—but then veers off in a far more pentatonic, bluesy direction.
If you like what you hear, track down the double album recorded during this tour, 1992's Live in Japan. It features live versions of other Beatles tunes, including "Piggies," "I Want to Tell You," "Old Brown Shoe," "If I Needed Someone," "Something" and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps."
A cheeky Lennon and McCartney were perhaps expecting to bring some friends back to the room. A hotel directory signed by all four of The Beatles is estimated to sell for £10,000 at auction.
The 1962 document from The Bull Hotel in Peterborough was filled in by the Fab Four ahead of a gig in the town with John Lennon and Paul McCartney perhaps expecting to bring some friends back to the room. While Lennon wrote on the form there would 33 people staying in his room, McCartney went 15 better with 58. George Harrison said there would be two staying in his room while manager Brian Epstein and Ringo Starr wrote just one apiece.
The gig in Peterborough came shortly after the release of Love Me Do. It appears McCartney was doing the driving as he was the only one who filled in his car registration on the directory. Auctioneer Paul Fairweather said: “It is a unique piece of early memorabilia and will have huge appeal with collectors worldwide.”
The directory will go under the hammer in Merseyside as part of Omega Auctions, Beatles Auction on March 24.
Source: Independent
In February 1968, the Beatles embarked on their famous discovery of India to study transcendental meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Now 50 years later India is rediscovering the Beatles — or at least the tourism potential of the world’s most famous rock band seeking salvation in the country.
A yoga festival in Rishikesh is having a Beatles special this month. A tribute band from England, the Fab Four, is supposed to perform there. There are plans for a Beatles Museum and what’s left of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram, a 14-acre compound where the Beatles stayed, has been spruced up for tourists.
Of course, when the Beatles actually came in 1968, the Indian government was far warier.
“There was strong opposition in parliament to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram and these international celebrities coming. The Communists felt that they were CIA spies,” says Ajoy Bose, a political journalist who has just written the book “Across the Universe,” which is about the Beatles in India. Maharishi’s meditation compound, known as Chaurasi Kutia, was built using money given to him by the American heiress Doris Duke on land leased by the Uttar Pradesh forest department.
Source: Sandip Roy
With talk that Paul McCartney is gearing up to release a new album, revered UK mega producer Steve Lillywhite says that iconic artists such as McCartney and Elton John have made "too many albums".
Appearing on The Music's latest Producer Series podcast, Lillywhite, who has worked with the likes of The Rolling Stones and U2, discussed the topic when asked if he would work with Queen if they were to record a new album with frontman Adam Lambert.
"I'm a big believer in artists who don't clog up the airwaves with new music just because they think they must release a new album," Lillywhite said.
"I love Paul McCartney, I love Elton John… I think they've made too many albums.
"Someone like Billy Joel, who I'm not a big fan of, but he's a good songwriter; he has not made an album for 20 years [excluding the 2001 Joel-composed classical LP, Fantasies & Delusions] because he hasn't really thought of what he wants to say.
Source: themusic.com.au
