Beatles News
PHOTOGRAPHER Mike McGear McCartney’s passion in photography has led to an out-of-the-box thinking that fuels his thirst to discover, develop and see the common surroundings in a fresh perspective.
Composing an image is simple but with a little thought plus a creative angle, Mike, gives a freshness and progression to the common perspective.
He encourages young people to be observant of their surroundings and see things with a fresh angle.
Mike, who is the younger brother of Paul McCartney from the famous English group Beatles, said teenagers who have a higher-than-average exposure to arts, be it photography, music or drama tend to take their imagination a step further that allows them to create something from abstract ideas.
It was Paul who gave Mike a Rollei camera in 1962, which made him pursue photography.
“Photography, music and drama allows a person to explore their own creativity,” he said.
Mike said he was grateful to his late father, Jim McCartney, a cotton salesman and part-time pianist, who encouraged him to pursue music by giving him and his brothers a guitar and banjo, and later a drum kit.
“It was my dad who gave us the gift of music.
“With this freedom, we developed ourselves and did what we wanted with our lives,” he said.
Source: The Star
One of the saddest facts of John Lennon’s senseless murder in December 1980—and there are many, to be sure—is that his killer robbed him of the opportunity to grow old, to rethink his relationships and perspectives as we all inevitably do with the passage of time.
Yesterday marks the 41st anniversary of John and Paul’s last day together—the last day, at least, for which we have convincing historical evidence in the post-Beatles biographical record.
It was Saturday, April 24, 1976, when Paul and Linda McCartney were visiting John Lennon and Yoko Ono at the Dakota apartment building in New York City. It was a far cry from July 7, 1957—just shy of 19 years earlier—when John and Paul first met in a Liverpool churchyard.
As it turned out, that fateful evening in April 1976 was not the first time that Lennon and McCartney had crossed paths since the Beatles’ disbandment. The songwriting duo had previously reunited on March 29, 1974, during Lennon’s infamous Lost Weekend in Los Angeles. The last known photo of John and Paul was taken that day by May Pang at Lennon’s rented house in Santa Monica.
During the previous evening, the former bandmates had participated in an impromptu jam session with the likes of Stevie Wonder, Harry Nilsson, Jesse Ed Davis, and Bobby Keys in tow. Even Mal Evans, the Beatles’ longtime roadie, was there for the occasion. While the session made for a generally lackluster performance—rendered even worse, no doubt, by a range of licit and illicit substances—the surviving recording was later memorialized on the bootleg LP A Toot and a Snore in ’74.
By: Ken Womack
Source: The Huffington Post
A modern take on meals with a classic rockstar.
Ringo Starr is offering two lucky fans the chance to dine with music royalty as a part of his charity campaign with Omaze.
The Beatles alumni will play host to one charitable fan (and their plus-one) at his 77th birthday brunch on the July 7 in LA. All you have to do is donate a minimum of $10 to Ringo’s Omaze campaign.
All the money goes to benefit the David Lynch Foundation, a non-profit organisation that reduces trauma and toxic stress among at-risk populations, reports Rolling Stone.
Winners will be flown to the event, where they’ll become part of Starr’s inner-circle to dine in style with other VIP guests in front of the world-renowned Capitol Records building.
As is tradition, Starr is encouraging the world to take midday (local time) on July 7 to spread a little “peace and love”. He says, “Wherever you are: on the bus, in the factory, having dinner, having lunch. No matter what part of the world you’re in.”
Recently, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr were found to be in the studio together. Starr shared a photo of the two Beatles legends together and wrote: “Thanks for coming over and playing Great bass. I love you man peace and love.”
By: Will Butler
Source: NME
PAUL McCARTNEY HELPS MOJO celebrate 50 years of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band with an exclusive interview in the magazine that hits UK shops on Tuesday, April 25. He recalls the circumstances surrounding the group’s most groundbreaking album and gives his verdict on the new stereo mix designed to add legs to one of popular music’s key benchmarks.
But as McCartney reminds MOJO, before Sgt. Pepper became an icon, there was a period of critical bemusement. How dare Beatles band go all weird?
“We were always being told, ‘You’re gonna lose all your fans with this one.’” McCartney tells MOJO. “And we’d say, ‘Well, we’ll lose some but we’ll gain some.’ We’ve gotta advance.”
In 1967 The Beatles ran the gauntlet of a media gripped in a moral panic over the younger generation’s embrace of drugs, and others who regarded Pepper’s stylistic smorgasbord and hints of thematic coherence as evincing ideas above the group’s station. The Lovable Moptops stereotype died hard.
“Sgt. Pepper did actually get a terrible review in the New York Times,” recalls McCartney. “The critic [Richard Goldstein] said he hated it, thought it was a terrible mess, and then he was on the streets all week and heard the talk, heard what people were saying, and he took it back [in a subsequent Village Voice piece], recanted after a week: ‘Er… maybe it’s not so bad.’ But we were used to that. She Loves You was ‘banal’. But if we liked it and thought it was cool, we would go for it.
By: Mojo Staff
Source: Mojo
Part of what established The Beatles as the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band of all time was the prolific nature of their early work.
When “Beatles for Sale” released on Dec. 4, 1964, it became the Fab Four’s fourth album in less than two years’ time. And it came out only 21 weeks after the band’s third album, “A Hard Day’s Night.”
Some might view “Beatles For Sale” as a placeholder between “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Help!,” both of which were attached to eponymous films. And while “A Hard Day’s Night” featured all original Lennon/McCartney compositions, only eight of the 14 tracks on “Beatles For Sale” were written by the band — a track listing similar to their first two albums, “Please Please Me” and “With The Beatles.”
Like other early Beatles albums, “Beatles For Sale” did not appear in the United States as an album until 1987 when the band’s catalogue was standardized for CD release. However, eight of its tracks appeared on the U.S. album “Beatles 65” and others were later released on “Beatles VI.”
The mood here is a bit somber. The lads were in the midst of an exhaustive schedule that included writing, recording, touring and filming. Even the cover photo, captured at Hyde Park, appears bleak. And John Lennon’s own songwriting had become darker, from the jilted lover of “No Reply” to the sad-sack songs “I’m A Loser” and “I Don’t Want To Spoil The Party.”
By: Brian Passey
Source: The Spectrum
Julian Lennon is thinking about putting his life story down on paper.
During an interview with The Huffington Post at Build Series, the musical artist and environmental activist said he’s interested in writing a memoir because, after all, “Who knows how long we’ve got?” He added with a smile, “I am hopeful, by the way.”
Lennon, 54, admits that he doesn’t have the best memory, so he’d have to rely on others to fill in the blanks of his life.
“I’d like to get around to that because there are so many memories that a lot of my friends or colleagues that I work with have that I don’t recall because of the time and the place and because of where my focus was as opposed to theirs,” he said. “Even hearing the stories myself that my friends have told me and I’m going, ‘Really? I did that? OK, right.’ So, I’m just as curious, to be honest.”
Some of those fuzzy memories date back to when he was a child, growing up as the son of John Lennon.
“He walked out the door when I was about 3 or 4 years old and we only saw each other a few times,” Julian said of his father.
When asked what kind of impact his dad had on him, Julian said, “As a father, not so much. We tried to make that up toward the end. But musically and as an artist — him along with the rest of the boys [the Beatles] — there’s probably nobody better. So they’ve always been an influence.”
One thing his late father said, though, has stuck with Julian.
By: Lauren Moraski
Source: The Huffington Post
Scots author Davies, 81, reflects fondly on his first experimentation with “drugs” in his new book The Co-Op’s Got Bananas! — his memoir of growing up in the 50s and 60s.
He says: “This one day Ringo gave me a ‘reefer’ to try in the 60s. I don’t smoke and I’d never taken any drugs my whole life, but I took it home to my wife.
“Well, we closed the curtains, took the phone off the hook and puffed away for half-an-hour, but felt no different and worked for the whole evening.
“The next time I saw Ringo I said, ‘I didn’t think much of your reefer’. That’s when he told me it was just cabbage leaves.”
Davies, who was born in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, was given permission to pen his biography of The Beatles as they recorded the iconic Sgt Pepper’s album.
Davies says: “I lived with them for 18 months and I was in Abbey Road during the whole making of Sgt Pepper’s.
“You know the famous photograph on Sgt Pepper? I was there in the studio at the time when it was being shot and they were going to have Hitler and they were going to have Jesus — but at the last minute people said it might be bad taste.”
By: Lisa Boyle
Source: The Scottish Sun
