Beatles News
If 2017 was a year for a new Ringo Starr album, next year will be an opportunity to revisit the vaults.
The Beatles drummer has announced a January 19 release date for new vinyl version of two of his albums, 1973's Ringo and the following year's Goodnight Vienna. Both have been remastered and will be pressed on heavyweight, 180-gram vinyl. Ringo, Starr's third album -- and only platinum seller -- was a smash featuring the hits "You're Sixteen," "Photograph" and "Oh My My" as well as collaborations with all four his Beatles mates. Goodnight Vienna was certified gold and launched the singles "No No Song" and "Only You (And You Alone)." The albums will be re-issued in their original form, with no additional tracks.
Starr released his 19th studio album, "Give Me Love," this year along with his 1999 holiday album I Wanna Be Santa Claus on vinyl for the first time ever. He takes his All-Starr Band back on the road on June 5 for a European tour that begins in Paris.
Source: Erica Banas
“Wonderful Christmastime” is the worst of Christmas songs, but it makes up for it by also being the worst of all songs, the worst song ever written by a human, Beatle or otherwise, the worst melody, the worst synthesizer, the worst production, the worst Wings song, the worst pronunciation of the word “here,” the worst lyrics, the worst scent. I have never seen the cover of the 45, but I bet it f**ing sucks. "Wonderful Christmastime" is the most terrible song ever written by anyone, or anything, ever, including robots and gorillas and Puff Daddy and Courtney Love. No one likes "Wonderful Christmastime." No one. Paul McCartney hates it. All of Paul McCartney's wives hate it. Santa thinks it's a joke. God is like, " I did not bestow upon you the Breath of Life to dishonor me with this unMely dreck," and I imagine He's not real happy about "Ebony and Ivory" either.
Source: Jeff Vrabel
LOVE, three chords and the truth are all you need when in the presence of the rock greatness of Paul McCartney.
After winning hundreds of thousands of hearts and minds as his One on One tour wound around the country, he finally arrived in Sydney for his two final Australian concerts at Qudos Bank Arena.
It was impossible not to marvel that after a very long 23-year wait for the Maccalytes, that here he was, a Beatle for crying out loud.
This was the man who managed to transcend the weight of that legend to maintain a profound influence on pop culture for five decades, with Wings, his vast solo work and who most recently shared chart glory with Kanye and Rihanna and the Foo Fighters.
McCartney traversed all those chapters in a show which stretched to almost three hours with plenty to sing about love, that perennial pop song obsession.
There was his great romantic loves. My Valentine was inspired by and dedicated to his wife Nancy in the audience.
And a couple of songs later, Maybe I’m Amazed which he wrote for his late wife Linda got a false start of wrong notes and words before this rock god decided to embrace his fallibility and declare it a trainwreck.
Source: Kathy McCabe
Paul McCartney may have intended the Beatles’ “Two of Us” to celebrate his blooming romance with Linda Eastman, but those words also summarized his friendship and creative partnership with John Lennon. Though recorded during the Beatles’ turbulent Get Back sessions, “Two of Us” remains a tender ode to love and friendship, although McCartney surprisingly intended the song for someone else to record.
As McCartney told biographer Barry Miles, he and Eastman would enjoy going for country drives together, often getting lost on purpose. Once she moved permanently to London, the couple would frequently bundle McCartney’s sheepdog Martha into the car, pick up a picnic lunch, and drive out to a remote rural area. Eastman would then take photographs as McCartney strummed his guitar.
It was during one of those adventures that McCartney composed what he originally titled “On Our Way Home.” “We’d just enjoy sitting out in nature, and this song was about that: doing nothing, trying to get lost,” McCartney told Miles. “It’s a favorite of mine because it reminds me of that period, getting together with Linda, and the wonderfully free attitude we were able to have.”
Although “Two of Us” was clearly a personal song for McCartney, he initially offered it to another group. Mortimer, a New York trio being considered for Apple Records, recorded the then-titled “On Our Way Home,” intended to be their debut single in June 1969. Even though they recorded other Peter Asher-produced tracks as well, Mortimer was soon ejected from the label — a victim of the Beatles’ then-manager Allen Klein. The album remained unreleased until 2017, when the PRM Records label finally released their shelved Asher sessions.
Source: Kit O'Toole
Sir Paul McCartney relished the "competitive" nature of his relationship with John Lennon.
The iconic duo penned some of the most famous songs in history during their days with the Beatles, and Sir Paul has revealed how the late star's determination to be the best helped to improve his own songwriting.
He explained: "It was quite competitive because if I wrote something he'd try and better it and then I'd try and better that, so it's a good system.
"It means you're going up a staircase and each time you're trying to make it better, so if that works it can make the song very good ... and in our case memorable.
"That was the trick because we couldn't put it down, we couldn't put it on a recording like today, you just had to remember it. So that was a good restriction too, it meant if you forgot it, too bad.
"So, it had to have a hook and nearly always, even if you forgot it in the evening, you'd go out for a drink and say, 'what was that bloody song'. You'd wake up in the morning an go 'oh yeah, I remember!' It would just come back."
The Beatles split in 1970, but Sir Paul never considered quitting music altogether, admitting it remains his obsession.
He told Australia's ABC: "It was either that or quit. And that was the decision at the time but I realised I liked music too much and if I quit, I'd still be doing it as a hobby.
"If you're a good cook, and they suddenly say 'Ok, you've won MasterChef', it's not like you're going to stop cooking.
"It's something you love doing, same for me, it's something I love.
"I'm always surprised when a song comes because I started with nothing and suddenly get a little idea I'm chasing and go 'ah, is this good?'. If you write something decent, you feel good. It's all part of the same thing. It can be a little bit of a therapy thing to."
Paul McCartney's long-lost Christmas album Unforgettable has been posted on YouTube more than 50 years after it was created.
Simon Wells, a Beatles fan who shared the video online, said McCartney made the album as a Christmas gift in 1965 for his bandmates John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. According to the Huffington Post, only three additional copies were made in addition to McCartney's original, which he created in his home.
Per Mark Unterberger's book, The Unreleased Beatles: Music and Film, McCartney told Mark Lewisohn in 1995 how the album came about.
"I had two Brenell tape recorders set up at home, on which I made experimental recordings and tape loops, like the ones in 'Tomorrow Never Knows,'" McCartney said. "And once I put together something crazy, something left-field, just for the other Beatles, a fun thing which they could play late in the evening. It was just something for the mates, basically."
The album features McCartney playing the role of a DJ as he introduces a playlist of various songs. There is no new content on the album from The Beatles or McCartney, but it features hits from The Rolling Stones, Elvis, and Nat King Cole, who sings the title track.
While there is no word on how Wells got a copy of the album, McCartney told Lewisohn that he always believed there was a copy out there.
"Unfortunately, the quality of these discs was such that they wore out as you played them for a couple of weeks. There's probably a tape somewhere, though," McCartney said.
Source: Huff Post
Ozzy Osbourne says that he owes his whole career to the Beatles.
The former Black Sabbath frontman was speaking to the End The Silence campaign by charity Hope And Homes For Children, which has been encouraging artists from across the music world to reflect on songs that made a difference to their lives when they were younger.
Ozzy chose She Loves You by the Fab Four and adds: “That song changed my life. She Loves You had such an impact on me. I remember exactly where I was. I was walking down Witton Road in Aston, I had a blue transistor radio and when that song came on I knew from then on what I wanted to do with my life.
“This was so brand new and it gave me a great feeling. Then I became an avid Beatles fan – they were great.
“I owe my career to them because they gave me the desire to want to be in the music game.”
Source: Team Rock
Sir Paul McCartney has had the same dream that he's flopping on stage for 50 years.
The Beatles legend might have been attracting massive crowds to his shows for more than five decades, but the 75-year-old musician is left in " cold sweats" at the thought of turning up to perform and stadiums full of people getting up and leaving.
McCartney - who has four adult children with late wife Linda and 13-year-old Beatrice with second spouse Heather Mills - admitted: "Ever since I started performing there is a dream I still have which is you are in a stadium playing with The Beatles or with this band and people start leaving and it is like 'OK what are we doing wrong' we try to pull out the big ones but they're still leaving. You wake in a cold sweat."
The 'Come Together' hitmaker is currently in Australia for his sold-out 'One On One Tour'.
Source: GV News
He's one of the most famous people on the planet and has been performing on stage for almost six decades. But at 75, Paul McCartney still has anxiety dreams about getting up in front of a crowd.
"Ever since I started performing there's like a recurring dream which is, and I still have it to this day, which is you're in a stadium and you're playing with The Beatles or with a band and people start leaving and it's like, 'OK, what are we doing wrong?'" he said.
"And we're trying to pull out the big one like, 'Quick, play Hey Jude, quick!' And they're still leaving.
"'Quick, Long Tall Sally!' And they're just drifting away and you wake up in a cold sweat."
The former Beatle sat down with 7.30 at the start of his Australian tour in Perth.
Rediscovering the old hits
Despite what you might think, he's not sick of playing his old songs.
"The funny thing is, particularly these days, it's like I'm rediscovering them," he said.
"You don't just sing and think of nothing. So I'm thinking of being in the studio with the guys when we did it.
"I'm thinking of how I wrote it, and on some of them I'm looking at them thinking: 'This is a 24-year-old kid who wrote this', which happens to be me. I'm thinking: 'This isn't bad, it's pretty good'.
"So that's what keeps you going. You're always hearing lines in the songs. Like Eleanor Rigby: 'The face that she keeps in a jar by the door' … you go and rediscover it as you go along."
When creating the setlist for his concerts, he said he asks himself: "If I was going to a Paul McCartney concert, what would I want to see?
Source: Leigh Sales
Ex-Beatles drummer Pete Best is set to make his acting debut in Liverpool in a new comedy called Lennon’s Banjo.
The show - about a quest to find the instrument that John Lennon first played music on - will be performed at the Epstein Theatre next spring.
Best will play himself in the brand new comedy stage production which runs between Tuesday, April 24 and Saturday, May 5 2018.
Written by Rob Fennah, the story focuses on Lennon's missing banjo which is considered to be the holy grail of pop memorabilia.
The instrument has been missing for six decades and it is now worth millions to the person that discovers it.
Source: Liverpool Echo
