Beatles News
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
Women practice yoga in front of Beatles-themed displays at the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Rishikesh, northern India, on Feb. 25, 2018. The area, which marks the 50th year of the British rock band's stay, has attracted many fans from around the world.
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.
Source: pri.org
It didn’t work out the way they thought it would. They left sooner than they intended. The parting was ugly. They did not learn the secret to happiness. But their brief sojourn in India changed the Beatles in ways they never expected.
“I think it might have just sort of saved their sanity,” says Rock biographer Philip Norman. Norman spoke recently at the Jaipur Literature Festival about the Beatles and India with Ajoy Bose, the author of the just-released book Across the Universe: The Beatles in India.
50 years after that famous trip, we can look back at it with rose-tinted glasses. After all, nostalgia can be good for the tourism business. “We have earmarked the last three days of the [International Yoga] Festival to celebrate 50 years of the Beatles' visit to Rishikesh,” says Uttarkhand Tourism Minister Satpal Maharaj. In fact, the 14-acre Chaurasi Kutia Ashram where they stayed had fallen into disrepair, the buildings crumbling, covered in graffiti, largely ignored by the local government after Maharishi Mahesh Yogi left. “At the last minute, they are waking up to the possibility,” says Ajoy Bose, “Now I am hearing there will be a museum.” A California-based tribute band, the Fab Four, will play in Rishikesh on 6 March as part of the special Beatles commemoration.
Source: firstpost.com
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.
In his recently-published book, The Cutting Edge: The Story of the Beatles’ Hairdresser Who Defined An Era, Cavendish (who is pictured above, 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”.
As he was blow-drying her hair one day in 1966, Asher turned to the 19-year-old Jewish boy from Burnt Oak – who had fallen into hairdressing after following his best friend Lawrence Falk into it, seduced by the fashionable lifestyle the salon seemed to offer – and asked: “Would you cut my boyfriend’s hair?”
Source: Alex Galbinski/jewishnews.timesofisrael.com
BROOKLYN, New York --
If you only listened to them, you might think you were listening to the Beatles themselves. But they are two twin brothers from Brooklyn, and their performances are sweet music to the ears of straphangers. Amiri and Rahiem Taylor are identical twins, born and raised in Bed-Stuy. The brothers are also featured in a viral video, that at last check had 18 million views. As children, their home was always filled with music, both jazz and classical.
But when their grandmother gave them a Christmas gift when they were about 15 years old, their musical world expanded. The teens became obsessed with the Beatles rock band video game and fell in love with the group's universal sound. Amiri and Rahiem also write and produce their own music and are half of the group Blac Rabbit, a psychedelic rock band. About three years ago, the brothers wanted to go visit their mom in Puerto Rico but didn't have enough money.
Source: Kemberly Richardson/abc13.com
I have to quibble with the “modern Schuberts” moniker [this is how I described the Beatles underneath a photo]. As gifted of tunesmiths as Paul, John & co. were, they don’t compare to Schubert or any other classical master. There is an immense gulf in the level of craftsmanship between, say Schubert’s 9th Symphony and Sgt. Pepper (especially as the craft in that album largely came from George Martin). The Beatles main schtick was introducing more diatonic, folk-influenced melodies and harmonies to the largely blues / rockabilly based popular music of the late 50’s & 60’s. But the comparison with classical music is off base. The Beatles are no more the modern Schuberts as Cole Porter is the modern Bach or Burt Bacharach is the modern Beethoven. They are all very talented musicians, but I would look to composers such as Part, Schnittke, Penderecki, post-war Stravinsky or Wuorinen (all either Catholic or Orthodox and significant composers of sacred music by the way) as my candidates for the “modern Schubert”.
Source: Dave Armstrong/patheos.com
