Beatles News
George Harrison’s 75th birthday is being marked in the most surprising of places.
An event celebrtaing the life of the former Beatle who passed away in 2001 is being held at Portmeirion in North Wales.
The Italian Renaissance-style village was the distinctive setting for the ‘60s television series The Prisoner and was also a favourite spot for The Beatles with George holding his 50th birthday party there in 1993.
This event is open to the public and includes a tour of Portmeirion giving details of George’s links to the site.
There will also be a Q&A session with Freda Kelly , the band’s former PA and president of the official fan club.
Her role, which she undertook from 1962 to 1972 and saw her responding to fans’ letters, often staying up until 4am to do so.
She also oversaw publication of a monthly fan club magazine.he evening will finish with a performance from the singer Paul Jones who was cast as George in the The Cavern Club Beatles, and other special guests. Tickets to the event, which include dinner, are £30, available to buy at this link .
Source: Liverpool Echo
Musician, recording engineer and producer Jerry Hammack has just released volume 2 of The Beatles Recording Reference Manual - a book that reveals the secrets behind the recording of some of the band's most famous albums. It is the second of what will be a four-volume set.
In January, volume 1 was nominated for an Award of Excellence from the Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC). The new book picks up where the first left off, covering "Help!", "Rubber Soul", and "Revolver" (1965-1966).
"This period in The Beatles' development is really fascinating," says Hammack. "It's a time where the demands of Beatlemania end and they are able to explore both from a songwriting and recording perspective. It represents the emergence of their unique voices as writers (think, 'In My Life') as well as their use of the studio to create sounds the world would never expect from a pop band (as in 'Tomorrow Never Knows')."
Source: beatlesnews.com
This past week as my husband Patrick and I were traveling, we took a break from our preferred news station and changed the channel to the Beatles station on Sirius XM Channel 18, where Peter Frampton produced a countdown of the top 50 romantic hits by the Beatles as chosen by listeners.
The satellite radio program served as a prelude to Valentine’s Day, with the title “All You Need is Love—The Top 50 Beatles Love Songs Countdown.” Songs like “Here, There, and Everywhere,” “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “Michelle,” “She Loves You,” “Something,” “Yesterday,” “Love Me Do” and on and on.
Frampton, a friend of the Beatles and a legendary musician himself, was tailored to the task of hosting the countdown, adding Beatle trivia and historical tidbits to keep the program flowing. Over and over, he posited the Beatles wrote some of the best-known love songs of all time. The messages of the 50 selected love songs were definitely about love and romance and sweethearts.
Source: JJ Abernathy/thespectrum.com
The I ME MINE exhibition of George Harrison's handwritten song lyrics, faithfully reproduced in facsimile, and rare photographs from the Harrison Estate has now opened in Tokyo, Japan. For an album of photographs from the exhibition, click here.
The exhibition will run at the Tomio Koyama Gallery from the 17th February to the 11th March, and will including a special event this Sunday 25th, for what would have been George Harrison's 75th birthday. Visit the gallery website for details.
Source: genesis-publications.com
John (‘more popular than Jesus”) Lennon was always inclined to make sweeping statements, and in December 1970, when interviewed by ‘Rolling Stone’s’ Jann Wenner, was particularly keen to dismiss and demythologize The Beatles.
Thus when asked, ‘What do you think the effect was of The Beatles on the history of Britain?’ he replied:
“ … the people who are in control and in power, and the class system and the whole bullshit bourgeoisie is exactly the same, except there is a lot of fag middle class kids with long, long hair walking around London in trendy clothes, and Kenneth Tynan is making a fortune out of the word ‘fuck.’ Apart from that, nothing happened. We all dressed up, the same bastards are in control, the same people are runnin’ everything. It is exactly the same.”
Source: John Plowright/soundblab.com
There is no easy explanation for such vastly dissimilar people as George (Harrison) and Ravi Shankar instantly connecting with each other, almost as if their relationship was preordained. Their family backgrounds were completely different. The Beatle was the son of a bus conductor father and a shop assistant mother, both with modest means and even more modest educational qualifications. The sitar maestro’s father was a statesman, lawyer and scholar, and his mother the daughter of a wealthy landowner. George grew up in a working-class suburb of Liverpool.
Source: Written by Ajoy Bose/qz.com
Fifty years ago, between 16 and 19 February 1968, the four Beatles and their partners flew to India to learn about meditation from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Their journey, both physical and spiritual, is being celebrated in an exhibition as part of The Beatles Story at the Albert Dock in their hometown of Liverpool. Enter the space and smell the sandalwood incense! Experience the vibrant colours of the compound! Walk in the living quarters where the Beatles wrote their songs! See Donovan’s guitar and Ravi Shankar’s sitar!
Martin King, the managing director of The Beatles Story, says, “We are trying to give a real feeling of the Ganges and the foothills of the Himalayas at the Albert Dock. Even the floor covering is like a grassy pathway. You see John Lennon’s No.9 bungalow with Donovan’s guitar outside and the idea is that they have been playing together and just left the set.
Source: SPENCER LEIGH/independent.co.uk
The famous Yoko Ono was born on February 18, 1933, in Tokyo, Japan. She moved to New York during the 1950’s where she pursued an artistic career, specializing in conceptual and experimental art. She first met Lennon in 1966 at her own art exhibition in London, and they became a couple in 1968 and wed the following year. With their performance Bed-Ins for Peace in Amsterdam and Montreal in 1969, Ono and Lennon famously used their honeymoon at the Hilton Amsterdam as a stage for public protests against the Vietnam War. Despite many claiming she was the main cause for The Beatles to break up as a band, this has been denied both by the members of the band and by Yoko herself. She, however, inspired John Lennon into breaking away from the Pop music mold he had become famous for with The Beatles and motivated him in becoming a more experimental artist using different and more raw and crude songwriting skills that were mainly reflected on his first solo albums and with Plastic Ono Band. In her music, Ono brought feminism to the forefront influencing several feminine artists but also avant-garde and alternative.
Source: Pop Expresso
George Harrison made a secret trip to the US incognito five months before Beatlemania crossed the pond, his estranged sister has revealed.
The music legend slipped into the country in September 1963 without fanfare, travelled the Midwest and played with a local band.
It was the last time that the Beatle, who would have celebrated his 75th birthday on February 25, felt 'like a normal human being', said 86-year-old Louise Harrison.
Louise, who lives in a trailer near Branson, rural Missouri, and relies on welfare payments, struggles to make ends meet managing a Beatles cover band since her brother's death in 2001.
She revealed that she hadn't been told about his terminal illness or the terrible pain he suffered until two weeks before he passed away aged 58 after a long battle with lung cancer.
Rare photos have revealed a behind-the-scenes glimpse at The Beatles historic debut Plymouth concert.
One momentous day in 1963, the biggest band in the world arrived in Plymouth for the first time.
Still in their early days and sporting their trademark mop haircuts but with more relaxed suits than they had previously been known for, the Fab Four were working their way around the country on their autumn tour when they played the ABC on November 13.
It was to be the band's fourth tour of Britain within nine months, this one scheduled for six weeks. In mid-November, as 'Beatlemania' intensified, police reportedly resorted to using high-pressure water hoses to control the crowd before a concert in Plymouth.
Source: Rachael Dodd/plymouthherald.co.uk
