Beatles News

In The Beatles’ 1966 song Taxman, George Harrison berates Harold Wilson’s proposed 95pc “supertax” on the UK’s highest earners. “If 5pc appears too small,” he sings bitterly, “be grateful I don’t take it all.”

But there was one man to whom the Fab Four were genuinely thankful for keeping their Revenue bill down: their accountant, Harry Pinsker.

Many people claim to have been in The Beatles’ inner circle, but Pinsker truly was. From 1961 to 1970 he oversaw their finances, set up their companies, helped buy their homes, and even signed off their grocery shopping.

“I first met them in my office – they were just four scruffy boys,” recalls Pinsker, now 87. “I hadn’t heard of them – few people had outside Liverpool. That changed.”

This is a bit of a tough question as all four of them were in the great Beatles movies “A Hard Day’s Night,” “Help!” and “Yellow Submarine,” and their songs have been used to great effect in countless films. Each of them is an Oscar-winner, having nabbed the award for best original score (for a musical film) for the 1970 documentary “Let it Be.”

But individually, each Beatle’s film work has run the gamut in quality/quantity.

John Lennon

Before his death in 1980, Lennon had acted in very few films. His key role outside of the Beatles films was in 1967’s “How I Won the War,” which reunited Lennon with Richard Lester, director of “A Hard Day’s Night.” In the WWII comedy, Lennon plays an enlisted man who falls victim to the pratfalls of his hapless commander.

Though little came of his acting career, Lennon has 840 movie/TV soundtrack credits to his name, more than any other Beatle.

Source: Micah Mertes / World-Herald staff writer - Omaha.com

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If you looked at the music sales charts this year and saw the Beatles’ masterpiece “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” perched in the top spot, you weren’t having a flashback to 1967 and the Summer of Love, when the album was first released. Yes, the Beatles got back this year, and you’ll get no argument from Geoff Emerick, the Grammy-winning engineer of that landmark album, that it’s absolutely where they once belonged. Emerick began his career as a teenager in 1962 for EMI in London, where he assisted the production of the Beatles’ recordings, including their first hit, “Love Me Do.” Over the years Emerick has twirled the knobs for a dazzling array of music greats, including Kate Bush, the solo Paul McCartney, Supertramp, Elvis Costello and another Brit sonic masterpiece, the Zombies’ “Time of the Season.” But his first time in Variety was tied to his Grammy win for “Sgt. Pepper” in 1968.

By the time “Sgt. Pepper” arrived, you’d already logged many hours with the Beatles at Abbey Road.

I was dropped into the deep end of the pond. I was mastering American records for the U.K. market one day, and the next day, when I was around 19, I was working on “Revolver.”

As great a record in its own way as “Sgt. Pepper,” if not better?

The Beatles knew from listening to American records that sounds could be better than what we were hearing in the U.K. So we worked on microphone positioning, miking the drums, working to get something more than the wishy-washy Cliff Richard sounds.

What were they aiming for?

I remember John telling me he wanted his voice to sound like “the Dalai Lama singing on a mountain” for “Tomorrow Never Knows.” So we hit on the idea of taking a spinning Leslie speaker from the Hammond and putting John’s voice through it.

There’s been a lot of publicity around the rerelease of “Sgt. Pepper” and the fact that it’s been remixed.

And an awful lot of it has been misinformation that I frankly find both defamatory and disrespectful. I’ve read that we put no time into the stereo mix, which is just inaccurate. We put just as much into the stereo mix as we did the mono mix. And to hear that [producer] George Martin would have loved to have all the tracks we have today to work from, I would say, “No, he wouldn’t.” But of course he’s not here to ask.

 Source: benjamin wachenje for Variety

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By any measure, Paul McCartney is the most successful musician of all time.

With his bands and his solo career, Sir Paul has sold more albums than anyone. McCartney is among the top Grammy winners, and he has dozens of platinum albums.

Of course it helps that he was part of the Beatles.

With 178 million albums sold, the Fab Four are the top-selling artist of all time in the U.S. The group had 43 platinum certifications, 26 multiplatinum and six diamond.

But McCartney’s solo work and his material with Wings have kept him in the spotlight, selling albums and winning more awards since the Beatles’ breakup. And McCartney’s tours have ranked among the top 15 worldwide for the last six years.

We took a look at McCartney and the Beatles statistics, and, in some cases, checked to see how he and they compare with other major musicians. See the stats below.

Credit where credit’s due

Some might say McCartney deserves only ¼ of the credit for his time in the Beatles.

I say no.

He should get full credit.

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A Dallas-based auction announced plans to sell what's said to be the first recording contract signed by the Beatles. It is expected to sell for $150,000, as part of a larger collection to be sold on September 19. (Aug. 21) AP

“Revolver” probably would have been a very different album without drugs and Indian music.

The former inspired much of John Lennon’s inventiveness, which paved the way for the legendary “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” the following year. And the latter heavily influenced George Harrison’s songwriting and musicianship as he contributed three of his own songs.Revolver" by The Beatles. (Photo: Submitted)

Released on Aug. 5, 1966, in the United Kingdom, the album directly preceded the band’s final concert on Aug. 29, 1966, in front of 25,000 people at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

“Musically, I felt we were progressing in leaps and bounds.”
— Ringo Starr, The Beatles

During the recording process the band spent about 300 hours in the studio, where producer George Martin said their ideas were beginning to become “much more potent,” according to TheBealtes.com. Ringo also recognized the more experimental nature of the album, building on what they started with “Rubber Soul.”

Source: The Spectrum.com

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Famed British performer Paul McCartney plans to return to the Iowa Events Center this summer for a one-night only concert, his second ever in Des Moines.

In case you didn't already know: Paul McCartney is performing in Des Moines on Friday, as part of his “One on One" summer tour.

So it's only fitting that July 21, 2017, is declared "Paul McCartney Day" in Polk County.

Polk County Auditor Jamie Fitzgerald tweeted a photo of the proclamation at the Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday morning.

McCartney, 75, is a storied songwriter and famed member of The Beatles. He is an 18-time Grammy Award winner and has sold an estimated 700 million records worldwide with The Beatles, Wings and through solo efforts.

Friday will be McCartney's third performance in Iowa. He first performed in 1990 at Jack Trice Stadium in Ames and again in 2005 at Wells Fargo Arena.

Source: Des Moine Register

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Ringo Starr has just turned 77. It's a few days after his celebrity-packed “Peace and Love”-themed birthday bash at Capitol Records in L.A., and he’s holding forth inside a Beverly Hills hotel on a warm summer afternoon. Among other things, about how he almost ended up decamping to Nashville last year with his pal and former Eurythmics guitarist Dave Stewart to make a country album. And about living in Los Angeles, where he first bought a house back in 1976 (“I love America,” he tells Billboard, “but I love L.A.”). He's even talking about those long strings of emojis he tacks on to the ends of his tweets -- which, by the way, he posts himself.

At some point during the conversation, you find yourself wondering whether it’ll always be like this. That one of the most famous drummers in rock music will remain the act you’ve known for all these years and keep this up well into his eighth decade. And why shouldn't he?

Ringo Starr may get old, but as far as he's concerned, being Ringo never does.

“I love joy,” he says. “I love the light. I’m still doing what was my dream at 13, and that’s playing. I think that helps. I promise you this, though -- I’m not this happy-go-lucky every day. But overall, my general demeanor is peace and love and joy.”

About that last part -- no matter what the entry point is during a conversation with Ringo, that’s where he inevitably steers things. To his three-word flower-child mantra, the catchphrase that’s as much a part of his persona as his trademark dark shades, two-finger peace salute and performing “With a Little Help From My Friends.”

Take, for example, asking him about his songwriting process, the first tentative fruits of which materialized toward the end of The Beatles’ run, when John Lennon and Paul McCartney had already taken their craft to stratospheric musical heights. On his 19th solo album Give More Love, set for a Sept. 15 release, the drummer doesn't pretend to be anything but the reliably uncomplicated showman he’s been since he first started working with his own material. And how does a drummer write a song, anyway?

“What usually happens is with the writers I write with, one of us will have a line,” he says. “I usually have a whole list of lines, and then we sort of just think what we’re gonna do. The best [new track] to talk about is 'So Wrong for So Long.' Somebody said that to me in 2008, and I just thought, 'that’s a great line,' and finally turned it into a record, into a track.”

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BOSSIER CITY, La. - The parking lots, as well as grassy area across the street from CenturyLink arena in Bossier City began filling up with cars with license plates from surrounding states early Saturday afternoon, as former Beatles and Wings member-turned-solo artist Paul McCartney kicked off his United States tour Saturday.

When the doors opened at 6:30 p.m., people began flowing into the arena, which was filled to capacity before the official 8 p.m. start time.

But when Sir Paul and his band bounded up the steps to the stage around 25 minutes late, no one seemed to care, as the 75-year-old rocker immediately got the huge crowd on their feet with an elaborate, yet pure, rendition of the Beatles classic 1964 hit, “Hard Days Night.”

Throughout the evening, McCartney interspersed early Beatles tunes with those from his years with Wings, and many in the audience never sat down during the almost three-hour concert…singing along with many of the songs.

Though many people in the audience clearly remembered the Beatles early days, some only remembered Wings, the band McCartney and his late wife Linda formed after he left the Beatles in 1970.

And others, obviously grandchildren of the original Beatles’ fans, were there for the sheer love of pure rock and roll.

McCartney asked the crowd how many there were from Bossier City, and got a rousing response – but then, when he asked how many were not from Bossier City, the response became thunderous.

Source: Nancy Cook

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For a knighted pop singer with a career stretching nearly 60 years, Paul McCartney seems like such a normal person.

The most scandalous thing I could find on TMZ was a video of him getting rejected alongside Beck at the doors of a club.

I read his latest interview with Rolling Stone and couldn't help but notice how cooly the 75-year-old performer dissected The Beatles' legacy.

“We always tried to be the best band in Liverpool,” McCartney told the magazine. “Then we tried to be the best band in England. Then we tried to be the best in the world.”

There's only a handful of musicians who could say something like that without appearing arrogant. McCartney's reflection on his mop-topped phase sounds so matter of fact, and there was very little precedent for what The Beatles did in their touring years. Those suits, songs and the resulting screams are the building blocks of arena tours and today's high-profile music entertainment.

The newest leg of the "One On One" tour lands in Oklahoma City on Monday and marks Sir Paul's return to the Chesapeake Energy Arena roughly 15 years after he helped open the downtown venue. He'll play nearly 40 songs over the course of three hours, a feat he'll accomplish without even taking a break for water.

“Can you imagine The Beatles stopping like, ‘Excuse me, hang on folks,' and go, glug, glug, glug?” he told Rolling Stone. “We just didn't do that, so I'm not raised in the ‘drink water' school. But before and after, I'll do that. But once I get on, I can stay on and do my thing.”

Building audience, legacy

So what keeps McCartney in the concert game? Why's he still on the road so often? His band wrote the touring rules decades ago, and he's got little to prove to fans.

Maybe he's always got a creative itch to scratch.

Look back a couple of years ago at “Hope for the Future.” It was a song McCartney wrote for the 2014 video game “Destiny,” one of the most expensively produced ever. It's full of hope, optimism and sadly fell flat on its face. The music video plants a Paulogram (hologram Paul) into the alien landscape of the video game. The Brit looks about as comfortable as an itch on that part of my back that'll never get covered with sunscreen.

A year later however, he'd collaborate on “FourFiveSeconds” alongside Rihanna and Kanye West. It's an acoustic pop gem with as much heart as “Let It Be” and a reminder of the simplicity that the Beatles worked so hard to perfect.

Maybe McCartney doesn't want to be forgotten. That's harder to believe, though. After all, every year seems to mark a significant album anniversary (happy 50th birthday to "Sgt. Pepper's"), and there isn't a medium The Beatles haven't conquered. After the music streaming behemoth Spotify debuted the band's catalog on Christmas Eve, more than 6.5 million people tuned within 100 days. Spotify streamed 2,793 years of The Beatles in three months.

It often takes an obit to remind people of a special talent. McCartney just continues to build an even bigger audience and his star power hasn't dipped in his twilight years.

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The nominations for the 69th annual Emmy Awards were announced this morning, and the Ron Howard-directed rock doc The Beatles: Eight Days a Week — The Touring Years came away with a fab five nods, including Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special.

The film, which got its TV premiere on Hulu in September, will also compete for Emmys in four other Nonfiction Program categories: outstanding writing, picture editing, sound editing and sound mixing.

Eight Days a Week — The Touring Years takes an in-depth look at the Fab Four’s history from 1962 to 1966, while showcasing the band’s live performances. Those span from their historic early hometown gigs at the Cavern Club in Liverpool through their final official concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

The movie, which features rare and previously unseen footage of The Beatles, was produced with the full cooperation of surviving members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, and from the widows of John Lennon and George Harrison: Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison.