Beatles News
The news has leaked that Ringo Starr is to receive a knighthood for services to music and charity in the New Year Honours List.
At the age of 77, he will become the second of The Beatles to be knighted after Sir Paul McCartney, some 52 years after the Fab Four were honoured by the Queen with MBEs. John Lennon famously sent his back to Buckingham Palace in 1969 in protest against Britain’s support of America in the Vietnam war and over UK involvement in the “Nigeria-Biafra thing”, as he called the civil war in that country.
WASN’T STARR THE WACKY ONE?
RINGO coined the phrase A Hard Day’s Night, which became the title of The Beatles’ No.1 hit. His fine comedic performance in the film of the same name showed that he could act, sing and play his drums, about which more later. It also showcased his outgoing personality, and he went on to have the central role in the second Beatles film, Help!
Source: Martin Hannan
So, which song had a profound influence on one of rock’s most influential musicians? As part of the End the Silence charity campaign, Paul McCartney reveals that Gene Vincent‘s “Be-Bop-A-Lula” had a huge impact on him as a youth.
“‘Be-Bop-A-Lula’ was the very first record I bought,” says the Beatles legend in a video interview. “I saved up all my pocket money and I went down to the city center in Liverpool, there was a little shop called Currys and it was really an electrical goods store but in the back, there was a little record booth and I knew I could get the record there.”
Source: columbusnewsteam.com
He's just returned from his exciting Australia and New Zealand concert tour dates.
And Sir Paul McCartney looked absolutely thrilled to be spending Christmas with his wife Nancy Shevell as he took to Instagram with a festive clip.
Embracing his wife, 58, in front of the Christmas tree, the Beatles musical icon, 75, wished his 1.6 million followers a happy festive season before the couple sealed the deal with a kiss.
'Happy Christmas everyone!' Sir Paul McCartney, 75, looked absolutely thrilled to be spending Christmas with his wife Nancy Shevell, 58, as he took to Instagram with a festive clip
Paul McCartney and wife Nancy Shevell spread Christmas cheer
Clad in a casual blue sweater, Paul couldn't wipe the smile from his face as he hugged Nancy, before looking to the camera and saying: 'Happy Christmas everyone, all over the world!
'We love you and wish you a beautiful New Year!' he enthusiastically continued.
Proving just how happy they were, the pair - who wed in 2011 - went on to lock lips.
The married couple are more loved-up than ever before and recently celebrated their sixth wedding anniversary in October.
Source: Daily Mail
The film was received with such fury that the band were forced to apologize for making it. The critics were wrong
The consensual first misstep in the Beatles’ career occurred the day after Christmas, 1967. In England, this is what is known as Boxing Day, when the postman and others in the service industries, however broadly defined, can expect to receive a present in a box — or they once could, anyway. It’s a big shopping day, a big post-Christmas sit-around-and-bask day, and an ideal day for some light television entertainment.
It was into that market that the Beatles wished to step as their once glorious 1967 campaign drew to a close. The year had begun with their release of the finest single we have, in “Penny Lane”/”Strawberry Fields Forever,” then reached a zeitgeist-bending high water mark in the early summer with "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." Later in that summer, manager Brian Epstein died.
Source: Boyah J. Farah
A letter John Lennon wrote to Paul McCartney and his late wife Linda will be up for auction and is expected to sell for about $60,700 (£40,000), NME reports.
Written in 1971, in the wake of the Beatles' break-up, the letter will be up for sale on May 30th as part of an online auction organized by Profiles in History. There's no word on the actual contents of the letter.
Rejected Beatles Demo Tape Up for Auction
Last year, a draft of a 1971 letter Lennon wrote to Eric Clapton expressing his admiration for and a desire to collaborate with the guitarist was auctioned off (also by Profiles in History): "Eric, I know I can bring out something great, in fact greater in you that had been so far evident in your music," Lennon wrote. "I hope to bring out the same kind of greatness in all of us, which I know will happen if/when we get together."
Source: Jon Blistein
BEATLES legend Ringo Starr will be knighted in the New Year’s Honours.
The drummer, 77, is recognised for services to music and charity.
Ringo Starr is to finally be knighted, over 20 years after bandmate Sir Paul McCartney received his gong
Ringo, given an MBE in 1965, is said to be “made up”. A pal added: “It’s richly deserved, if a little overdue.”
He will return to Buckingham Palace for a knighthood — 52 years after getting his MBE.
Bandmate Sir Paul McCartney urged the Queen: “Look, love it’s about time.”
Macca was knighted in 1997 but Ringo, 77, had given up all hope before a letter arrived from the Palace a few weeks ago.
Source: David Wooding
From 1963 to 1969, members of the official Beatles fan club were treated to a special Christmas record every December. And as the Fab Four drifted from mop-top pop to pioneering psychedelic grooves, those festive recordings got progressively stranger.
Enter the 1968 release, which included bizarre highlights like
Paul McCartney singing a holiday song in honor of Christmas, New Year's and Michealmas;
John Lennon narrating the story of 'Jock and Yono' — two amorous balloons whose lives parallel Lennon's relationship with Yoko Ono;
Ringo Starr having a drunken altercation with himself;
and George Harrison inviting Tiny Tim to belt out a high-pitched rendition of 'Nowhere Man.'
So how did the Fab Four get there? Well, scroll down to check out The Beatles' other records made in honor of Christmas — or Crimble, to use Beatle slang.
Source: James McClure - civilizedlife.com
In 2017, as part of a 50th anniversary tribute to the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, I had the golden opportunity to recreate George Harrison’s “Within You Without You” onstage. Years ago I’d studied Indian music—specifically tabla drumming—in California and in India, and singing “Within You Without You” with a full Indian ensemble and string quartet was an extraordinary experience. While learning the tune, I began experimenting to see if I could bring this haunting and complex song to life on guitar. (Harrison reportedly played guitar on the Sgt. Pepper’s track, but it’s buried deep in the mix.) This arrangement is the result.
Like the Indian traditions it’s based on, “Within You Without You” has no chord changes—the melody unfolds over a drone (roots and fifths played on the tambura). To simulate that sound, I wound up tuning to C G D G B D with a partial capo on the top five strings at the fifth fret—giving me open-string pitches of C C G C E G, an open C tuning. The Sgt. Pepper’s track is in C#, but the song was actually recorded in C and then sped up, so this arrangement is in the original performance key.
Source: Acoustic Guitar
From the Long Players series: writers on their most cherished albums.
The album wasn’t a recognisable art form before the Beatles. If the British pop stars of the time, Cliff, Billy, Marty or Adam released an LP it was to earn extra royalties from their regurgitated singles. When, in February 1964, Cathy McGowan broke the news on Ready, Steady,Go! that the Beatles had reached No 1 in the US charts, her teenage audience knew that “I Want to Hold Your Hand” wasn’t destined to be reproduced as an album track. For UK followers, the Beatles could be relied upon to invariably provide only new music for the extra outlay required to buy an LP.
Then came the rhapsodic phase when every new record seemed designed to take the pop album to a new and previously unobtainable level. Sandwiched between Rubber Soul and Sergeant Pepper in this amazing trilogy was Revolver. When it was released in the summer of 1966 I was working at Tesco in Hammersmith King Street where the man who delivered the Nevill’s bread at 8.30 every morning also carried a stock of contraband EMI albums, which he sold at half price.
It was from Fred the bread man that I acquired the musical highlight of that or any other summer. (I like to think there was an egg man somewhere destined to carry knocked-off copies of Magical Mystery Tour.) The title’s clever pun enshrined the way we listened to music at the time (and are increasingly doing so again); putting a slab of vinyl the size of a large pizza on to a turntable, applying the needle and listening as it moved through the five or six tracks on that side before turning it over to complete the process.
Source: USA Today
The 50th anniversary of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was much celebrated in 2017. But this Christmas also marks 50 years since the release of another Beatles production that received much less critical acclaim – the Magical Mystery Tour film.
Much of the music within it was produced during a particularly fecund period (even by the Beatles’ standards) and is, or course, peerless – from the music hall echoes of Your Mother Should Know through the plaintive, melodic Fool on the Hill to the boundary breaking I Am the Walrus.
Unfortunately the film itself fell far short of that artistic bar. First broadcast on Boxing Day 1967, it is, to put it mildly, seriously flawed. Incoherent, sexist, technically shaky and verging on boring, history hasn’t been kind to its cinematic qualities.
Contemporary reviews and audience responses were also so generally scathing that Paul McCartney was moved to issue an apology of sorts to the television broadcast’s 20m viewers. He said in a hastily convened interview:
Source: Adam Behr
