Beatles News
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
WALLINGFORD — More than 20 bands will come together for a Beatles music festival June 10 at the Oakdale Theatre, a new venue for the annual gathering.
The event said goodbye to Danbury, where it was held for the past five years, and hello to the Oakdale as part of an expansion, said Charles Rosenay, executive producer of Liverpool Productions.
“We have double the amount of bands,” Rosenay said. “Moving to the Oakdale gave the flexibility of being indoors and outdoors.”
The festival will incorporate the Oakdale’s dome stage, dubbed Pepperland, as well as the outdoor patio, called the Octopus’s Garden. If the rain comes, the outside stage will follow the sun inside to a breakout convention room.
Rosenay’s entertainment agency conducts Beatles history tours of Liverpool and London every summer, and also produced Beatles conventions for several years.
He said the conventions focused on memorabilia and special guests, but the festivals are “all about the music.”
A central Connecticut-based Beatles tribute band, the Hofners, is the finale band, “one of best bands in country,” Rosenay said.
The Hofners, named after Paul McCartney’s distinctively-shaped bass, will perform the entire “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” album, songs the actual Beatles never played live. The group stopped touring in 1966, and their magnum opus was released the following year.
Rosenay said he expects the festival to draw 2,000 to 3,000 people.
“Every person who loves the Beatles, within driving distance, should come to such a great event,” he said. “Where else can you see not just one but 20 bands?”
This year, Gene Cornish, a founding member of the Rascals, is the festival’s special guest. The Rascals were contemporaries of the Beatles and scored hits with “It’s a Beautiful Morning,” “A Girl Like You” and “People Got To Be Free.”
Cornish, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, will be available to meet and greet, sign autographs and take photos.
Festival organizers have thought of every little thing; there will be food trucks, vendors and a partner hotel for those who need somewhere to stay the night before.
Concerts With Causes, a Wallingford nonprofit, will be distributing information about their organization.
Tickets start at $19.67 for general admission or, if you’re a rich man, up to $39 for VIP with premium parking and seating.
At a glance
Fab4 Music Festival, featuring Beatles-inspired bands
When: 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. June 10
Where: Oakdale Theatre
Tickets: General admission $19.67, VIP with premium seats and parking $39
