Beatles News

In celebration of what would’ve been George Harrison’s 74th birthday, we count down his best Beatles songs. Today (February 25) would be the legendary George Harrison’s 74th birthday. Before the Beatles split, the guitarist contributed several of the very greatest songs in the Fab Four’s canon. Here are his 10 best Beatles tracks. 10. ‘I Need You’ Appears on: ‘Help!’

“All the world is birthday cake, so take a piece, but not too much.” George Harrison didn’t exhibit the moody genius of John Lennon. Neither did he possess the charming boyish delight of Paul McCartney or the brilliant dry humour of Ringo Starr. But the ‘quiet Beatle’ owned a personality that went far higher and beyond that of his fellow bandmates. With strikingly good dark looks, an inherent musical tendency, and the soul of an Indian sage, George Harrison’s extraordinary life as a leading but humble musician of the greatest age of rock is perhaps the most interesting one to speculate, possibly because of his incessant urge to keep it behind closed doors.

The Fab Four’s iconic first performance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in February 1964 is what initially inspired the devotion of many Beatles fans. For Drew Harrison, the John Lennon of Beatles tribute band The Sun Kings, which bring the Liverpool lads’ tunes to Fairfield on Saturday, the story was different. For one thing, he was only 3 years old in 1964. “When I was 7 in 1968, I was living in New Jersey and at a summer school class I heard ‘Dear Prudence’ from ‘The White Album,’ ” Harrison said. “It was magical to me. The reason I am talking to you right now is because that song kicked my butt.”

In early 1971, with The Beatles involved in some bitter legal disputes with each other and with their own management, Paul McCartney recorded Ram with his wife Linda and three hired guns, guitarists David Spinozza and Hugh McCracken, and drummer Denny Seiwell. The album was eviscerated by critics on its release, with Jon Landau and Robert Christgau particularly vicious in their assault on both the album and McCartney’s general reputation relative to John Lennon. Some writers were grudgingly complimentary about McCartney’s sheer mastery of the craft of production, but almost no one could be heard to support the material itself.

John Lennon and Paul McCartney have long been ranked among the premiere songwriters of the 20th century. That the pair both wrote for the same band is certainly a central element of the The Beatles’ standing in rock history. Any band with two great songwriters is certainly very, very lucky. As we all know, the Fabs didn’t have two great songwriters – they had three. The emergence of George Harrison’s songwriting talent only serves to reiterate that, as in so much of their lives and career, The Beatles were winners of whatever history’s equivalent of the Powerball is.

There's a barbershop in Buenos Aires where you can have any haircut you want - as long as it's a Beatles haircut. The most popular style is the John Lennon 1967 Sergeant Pepper cut, a look that's still going strong 50 years after the release of the Beatles' hit record. Welcome to the Beatles barbershop of Buenos Aires, where the only haircuts on offer are inspired by the styles of the Fab Four. Hairdresser Gerardo Weiss has brought together his twin passions to create what he claims is one of only four Beatles-inspired barbershops in the world. After a long career working for top Argentine hairdressers, Weiss decided to forge his own path and opened a barbershop back in 1988.

Fashion designer Stella McCartney has apologised after video emerged showing her leaving the scene of an accident involving a taxi driver, without providing her full details. Paul McCartney’s daughter issued a statement on Tuesday saying she was “very apologetic” about the accident after driver Arash Nabezadeh released footage of the aftermath to The Sun. McCartney was said to have given Nabezadeh her registration number, but failed to provide him with her personal details, driving off when the 32-year-old began filming her. In footage of the incident, the designer is heard saying, “take the number of my licence plate. Do whatever you need to do, no problem”. The law states that if you are involved in a collision you must give your full name, address and registration number, or report the incident to the police within 24 hours.

Washington has 27 specialty license plates celebrating law enforcement, snow sports, firefighters, rhododendrons and more. Some lawmakers think using John Lennon to fight hunger justifies a 28th. Bipartisan bills in the House and the Senate aim to create a new license plate and source of income for Feeding Washington, a nonprofit organization that supports food banks around the state. The plates would feature a self-portrait of the former Beatle with the word “imagine” across the bottom.

Sir Paul McCartney has been dubbed a "really talented magician". The 74-year-old musician was recently spotted showing off his trickery at a party in Los Angeles, and onlookers have described his act as "really good". One fellow party-goer said: "Sir Paul is a really talented magician. He often performs tricks during any showbiz bash he attends. He's actually really good, people are always so shocked." It has been claimed that The Beatles legend is thinking about expanding his career prospects and making his magic tricks available for hire.

I was the species of moody adolescent who drove people away from me when that was the last thing I wanted, so I spent a lot of time alone. I had private enthusiasms. I liked to be in the woods by myself, I liked to sleep, I liked to swim underwater, and I liked to sit in my room and listen to music, usually repetitively, while looking at the record’s cover. The first record I did this with was the Kingston Trio’s “At Large,” which belonged to one of my older brothers. I played it often enough that I was able finally to establish who among the three men on the cover was Dave Guard, who was Bob Shane, and who was Nick Reynolds; also, who had the husky voice, who had the tenor, and who had the slightly stiff delivery. Likewise, several years later, staring at the cover of the Grateful Dead’s first record, I determined who was Bob Weir, who were Captain Trips, Phil Lesh, and Bill the Drummer, and who was Pigpen. (People tend to look like their names, and when they sing they often sound like their names, too.) When “Revolver” came out, in 1966, I already knew who the individual Beatles were—they had cunningly saturated the culture by then—but, even so, I stared at their images while I played “She Said She Said” so many times that I thought I might wear out the groove.