Beatles News
An evening in early April. Outside Abbey Road Studios in north-west London, tourists are performing their customary dance with irate motorists as they attempt to have themselves photographed on the zebra crossing across which The Beatles walked in 1969 for the cover shot of Abbey Road.
Inside the complex, a group of 100 people are seated in Studio Two – another historic landmark, if one less easily accessible to the public. Here, guests are looking around, taking photos on their phones, peering up the stairs to the control room: spaces once populated by living, working, actual Beatles as they went about their business making some of the world’s greatest music.
It is 50 years ago today, pretty much, that the Beatles released their album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The record starts with an orchestra warming up and ends with a thunderous piano chord. There are sentimental songs and otherworldly trips, rooster noises and laughter. It’s the pinnacle of the band’s achievement but possibly also marks the beginning of their end. Shortly after, John Lennon and Paul McCartney became creatively estranged. Here, though, they are still working genuinely in partnership and it’s magnificent to hear.
As the producer’s son – a 40-something named Giles Martin – tells the gathering, it has been quite something to work on such an album. From the start of their recording career in 1962, his father George worked with the Beatles to turn their ever-expanding musical brief – feedback, sitar drones, a song which would sound like "monks chanting on a mountain top" – into something which might be technically achievable in a recording studio. From late in 1966 to April 1967, he embarked on their most ambitious project yet: a release on June 2, 1967 that was both nostalgic and thrillingly contemporary. On the original vinyl record, the tracks were all run together with no gaps between them, to create a seamless trip into the Beatles’ new world.
The group worked tirelessly on the album. They spent 30 hours recording the final song A Day in the Life – three times longer than they spent on their entire debut LP (Please Please Me) four years earlier. Long into the night, they laboured on the mono mixes of the original recordings, then retired to their homes with acetates of the night’s work to continue listening. The stereo mixes, roomier affairs, were created by studio engineers, with Beatles seldom present. Before this one, the last major Beatles project was the mastering of the catalogue in mono for vinyl – reflecting the appetite for this form among the deepest listeners of the band.
By: John Robinson
Source: The National (AE)
The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which Rolling Stone named as the best album of all time, turns 50 on June 1st. In honor of the anniversary, and coinciding with a new deluxe reissue of Sgt. Pepper, we present a series of in-depth pieces – one for each of the album's tracks, excluding the brief "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" reprise on Side Two – that explore the background of this revolutionary and beloved record. Today's final installment tells the full story of the late Swinging London socialite immortalized in "A Day in the Life."
Just past midnight on December 18th, 1966, a light blue Lotus Elan sports car slammed into a parked van on Redcliffe Gardens, an affluent residential street in southwest London. The driver, 21-year-old Tara Browne, heir to a million-pound Guinness Brewery fortune, died of his injuries a shortly thereafter. The story was still making headlines a month later, when the coroner's verdict was published in the January 17th, 1967, issue of The Daily Mail. John Lennon, a voracious newspaper reader since childhood, had a copy propped on his intricately carved upright piano in the den at Kenwood, his English country estate. He scanned the pages while his hands floated over the keys, finding the chords that would ultimately close the Beatles next album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
"I noticed two stories. One was about the Guinness heir who killed himself in a car. That was the main headline story," he recalled in a 1980 interview with Playboy. "On the next page was a story about 4,000 potholes in the streets of Blackburn, Lancashire, that needed to be filled." While the holes were delightfully absurd, Browne's accident hit chillingly close to home. He was a familiar face in the Beatles' social circle, and one of Swinging London's first famous fatalities.
By: Jordan Runtagh
Source: Rolling Stone
A remarkable letter in which Beatle George Harrison pleads poverty while at the same time boasting about a new Jaguar car he had just bought has come to light.
Writing just as the Beatles were on the verge of international stardom, the lead guitarist appeared concerned songwriters Paul McCartney and John Lennon would become 'very rich' while he would be 'poor and hungry'.
He then outlined a money-making idea he had of writing a book about the Beatles - and wrote to friend Astrid Kirchherr in August 1963 for help.
Kirchherr, a German, had been the fiancee of the so-called fifth Beatle Stuart Sutcliffe, who tragically died of a brain haemorrhage in April 1962.
Four months earlier Kirchherr had accompanied Paul, George and Ringo Starr on holiday to Tenerife and took some intimate photographs of the band.
In the letter that is now up for sale for £20,000, Harrison asked her to send him the photos so he could use them in his book.
He also included a tongue-in-cheek pic of his new Jaguar while lamenting his lifestyle.
By: Adam Aspinall
Source: The Daily Mirror
The bodies of a woman and two children have been found at a flat in Liverpool that John Lennon lived in.
Police were called to a ground floor flat on Falkner Street, near Toxteth, Liverpool shortly before 19:30 BST on Tuesday.
A man, 30, was detained on suspicion of murder before being taken to hospital after falling ill.
Merseyside Police believe the incident was domestic in nature. It said it was not looking for anyone else.
A police spokesman said tests were being carried out on a substance found at the scene.
The arrested man was taken to hospital before being discharged and taken to a police station for questioning.
The force added a post-mortem examination will be carried out to establish the causes of death.
Neighbours said the property in the Georgian Quarter was regularly visited by Beatles fans on tours of the city.
The flat was once owned by the band's manager, Brian Epstein, and Lennon lived there with his first wife Cynthia shortly after they married in 1962.
BBC
It is (almost) 50 years ago today that The Beatles released Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Liverpool is celebrating the landmark album's anniversary with a festival - and one event is taking it particularly close to home for locals.
When actress Brodie Arthur was asked to take part in Liverpool's official Sgt Pepper anniversary celebrations, she first needed to do some quick research.
"When they said 'Sgt Pepper,' I said, 'Oh no, I'll have to Google it because I don't know any of the songs on the album,'" the 25-year-old says.
"When I listened, I knew a couple of them, but I wouldn't necessarily have associated them with the album. I remember the cover and what it looks like, but I've never really been familiar with it."
Now more familiar, Arthur is the star of a play inspired by track six, She's Leaving Home.
Listening to it afresh as someone half the age of the album itself, the stirring ballad still "hits you in the feelers", she says.
The play is one of a number of events taking place in the Fab Four's home city for the anniversary.
Each song has inspired a different performance or artwork.
But none is what you might expect - there are no tribute gigs or homages to the LP's iconic cover.
More details: Sgt Pepper reimagined for anniversary
For She's Leaving Home, Liverpool-based theatre company 20 Stories High asked young people about their home lives and their reactions to the song, which was written about a girl who walks out because she feels trapped by her parents - who say they have "sacrificed most of our lives" for her.
Performances will take place for audiences of just 10 people in the front rooms of terraced houses in the Toxteth area, meaning the play is more closely rooted in the city than any of the other anniversary events.
Arthur, who's from Toxteth and is a former member of 20 Stories High's youth theatre, says she can relate to the song.
Bringing the song up to date
"Even though it was 1967, it does feel like that [now], and it hit me because when I left home my mum was a bit like that - 'I've sacrificed my whole life,' and all the rest of it.
"I was just looking at it like, 'I'm 18 and I want to move out and why are you being so horrible?'
"But now when I look back and after listening to the song, I thought, 'Oh bless her, she must have been an absolute emotional wreck and I was just packing my bags and leaving her.'"
Source BBC
Photo:
Gareth Jones
The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which Rolling Stone named as the best album of all time, turns 50 on June 1st. In honor of the anniversary, and coinciding with a new deluxe reissue of Sgt. Pepper, we present a series of in-depth pieces – one for each of the album's tracks, excluding the brief "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" reprise on Side Two – that explore the background of this revolutionary and beloved record. Today's installment tells the story of how Paul McCartney's father's musical past inspired the "rooty-tooty variety style" of "When I'm Sixty-Four."
Alongside Elvis Presley, Little Richard and Buddy Holly, it's important to cite Jim Mac's Jazz Band among Paul McCartney's formative influences. The obscure ragtime combo never cut a record, but it happened to be fronted by the future Beatle's father, Jim. "My dad was an instinctive musician," McCartney recalled in the Beatles Anthology documentary. "He'd played trumpet in a little jazz band when he was younger. I unearthed a photo in the Sixties, which someone in the family had given me, and there he is in front of a big bass drum. That gave us the idea for Sgt. Pepper: the Jimmy Mac Jazz Band." Beyond inspiring the cover image, McCartney's musical heritage would get an affectionate nod on the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band track "When I'm Sixty-Four."
By: Jordan Runtagh
Source: Rolling Stone
Many a pop star has faced a public controversy over the past five decades – an unfortunately timed Tweet here, an interview aside there – but, arguably, none has weathered a storm of quite the proportion of that facing the Beatles in 1966, when John Lennon casually announced that the band was “bigger than Jesus”.
He said it in March of that year, and nothing happened. But, five months later, just as the Fab Four were about to head off on a tour of the US, the remarks got out, and they caused a storm. Protests broke out in America’s Deep South. Radio stations stopped playing the band’s songs, their records were burned, press conferences were cancelled and threats were made.
But to see the Liverpool quartet’s reaction, you’d never guess... watch these cool cucumbers in action below.
The clip is from the brand new documentary ‘It Was Fifty Years Ago Today! The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper and Beyond’ - charting the twelve months (Aug 1966 - Aug 1967) that would arguably be the most crucial in the band’s career, a year in which they stopped being the world’s number one touring band and instead became the world’s most innovative recording artists, pushing the boundaries of what could be achieved in the studio.
By: Caroline Frost
Source: The Huffington Post
The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which Rolling Stone named as the best album of all time, turns 50 on June 1st. In honor of the anniversary, and coinciding with a new deluxe reissue of Sgt. Pepper, we present a series of in-depth pieces – one for each of the album's tracks, excluding the brief "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" reprise on Side Two – that explore the background of this revolutionary and beloved record. Today's installment looks back at the rock summit meetings that took place during the recording of "Lovely Rita."
By early 1967, Abbey Road was one of the few remaining places on the planet where the Beatles could be guaranteed a modicum of privacy. As such, the studios had taken on an almost sacred significance, and outsiders were viewed with suspicion. It was an unspoken rule that wives and girlfriends were not welcome except on very special occasions, and even manager Brian Epstein entered at his own peril. Once during a studio visit, he dared to suggest that the singing sounded slightly flat. "You look after your percentages, Brian. We'll look after the music," John Lennon shot back. Epstein made himself scarce after that.
By: Jordan Runtagh
Source: Rolling Stone
Is this George Harrison’s first ever guitar?
The dusty instrument surfaced after spending more than half a century being hidden in a Cheshire cupboard.
Until now, it was believed his oldest surviving guitar was an Egmond, which was auctioned off to an anonymous buyer in the mid 1980s.
George’s mother Louise helped the 14-year-old buy the Egmond from a school friend for £3, after the family moved to a council house in Speke. With his mother’s encouragement, George mastered the beginner’s guitar after a few months and asked for a new one.
Louise saw her son’s musical flair and saved up until she could afford a Hofner President. The President was a middle-of-the-range electric guitar and cost Louise around £30, and was a step up from his primitive Egmond.
A year later, still aged 14, Harrison joined school pal John Lennon’s band ‘The Quarrymen’, on Paul McCartney’s recommendation.Lennon was unconvinced by George’s ability to begin with, but allowed him to remain in the band.
After changing the band’s genre from skiffle to rock and roll, all but Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison left and two years later, in 1960, they renamed the band The Beatles.
By: James Gant
Source: Liverpool Echo
One of the great perks of being a Beatles buff is that the band left plenty of unalloyed masterpieces, and a couple of dark horses, that make for a lot of fun arguments you can have in your head, changing course when need be and reversing field like your last series of thoughts existed for the sole purpose of creating totally oppositional ones. That’s a pretty Beatle-y conceit, as if you’ve passed through that Sea of Holes in Yellow Submarine, with your previously held opinions shape-shifting in the process.
It’s not the case now, but as we mark the 50th anniversary of the June 2, 1967 release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, it’s worth noting that from the time of that release until, say, the mid-1990s, this was the album you were told was, far and away, the best album that had ever been released. To question this was to go against a veritable rock and roll Commandment in which it was writ: The Band Leader Hereforth Known as Sgt. Pepper Presides Over the Greatest Musical Platter There Ever Shall Be.
As a kid, I spent an ungodly amount of time ranking The Beatles’ albums in my head. I never had Pepper first, but I always had a qualifier for my argument, which we shall come to. I started getting into the band hardcore in the early 1990s, so I was there to watch this shift away from Pepper and toward Revolver and Rubber Soul, the two albums that preceded it. A lot of that shift seemed to come from the UK, with magazines like the solid Q and the stolid MOJO really stumping for those earlier albums.
By: Colin Fleming
Source: The Daily Beast
