Beatles News

IT WAS 50 years ago today ... when an 18-year-old Richard Lush was learning his craft as a sound engineer and working on the iconic Beatles album, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Having started off his career mixing small sections of records such as Rubber Soul and Revolver, little did he know he was about to be become the chief sound engineer at Abbey Road Studios in London on an album, which not only came to define the 1960s, but is now arguably considered one of the greatest records of all time. Mr Lush, who has called Sydney home since the 1970s, and fellow engineer Geoff Emerick, who now resides in Los Angeles, will take part in a 50th anniversary retrospective, discussing the legendary Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album at a Q & A event in Melbourne in February. Mr Lush, who spoke exclusively to Leader, said the first song he worked on was A Day In The Life, which at the time was considered an ambitious recording.

A painting of Sir Paul McCartney by a Liverpool Beatles fan was given the thumbs up by the music legend himself. Sir Paul, pictured below, shared the colourful piece by talented Kevin Allen on his social media pages as part of his regular “Friday fan art” feature. The image – which uses bold shades of purple, yellow, blue and pink to make up the music legend’s face – has so far been liked a staggering 36,000 times on Instagram and 14,000 times on Facebook. Fans have heaped praise on Kevin’s work, with one calling it “a fantastic psychedelic painting” and another hailing his “fantastic imagination”. Kevin’s sister Maria Dillon, 56, from Aigburth, submitted the photo on Twitter as a surprise – and said she was delighted Sir Paul had picked it out of the thousands submitted every week.

Along with the centenaries of two Russian revolutions, next year will also mark the 50th anniversary of a rather more benign event that, even so, marked the overthrow of an old order. It was the release of the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which had been in planning since before Christmas 1966 and burst onto the streets in June 1967.

In its ongoing mission to support meaningful causes through the arts, The Jerry Garcia Foundation will host a Holiday Concert at the Harmonia Yoga Arts Studio on December 16th to benefit WhyHunger. Inspired by John Lennon and his song, “Imagine,” the “Imagine There’s No Hunger” campaign endeavors to turn the dream of a world without hunger into a reality. The Jerry Garcia Foundation is donating a collection of Jerry Garcia’s visual art to the WhyHunger organization. Select pieces will be on exhibit at Harmonia on the night of the concert as well. All proceeds generated from the concert and fine art will support the WhyHunger mission.

Paul McCartney will reissue his 1989 album, Flowers In the Dirt, with a slew of rare demos with Elvis Costello and never-before-seen video footage March 24th via MPL/Capitol/UMe. The release will be the 10th installment in McCartney's archive collection, available in three different formats: A three CD/1 DVD set, a two CD set and a double vinyl LP. All three editions will include a remastered version of the album and a set of McCartney and Costello's original and previously unreleased demos. Those include early versions of the four songs Costello contributed to Flowers In the Dirt ("My Brave Face," "You Want Her Too," "Don't Be Careless Love" and "That Day is Done"), plus "The Lovers That Never Were," which ended up on McCartney's follow-up Off the Ground, and "Playboy to a Man" and "So Like Candy," which appeared on Costello's 1991 LP Mighty Like a Rose. The other two demos, "Twenty Fine Fingers" and "Tommy's Coming Home," have been bootlegged, but never officially released.

A BEATLES fanclub magazine unwittingly donated to a charity shop in a box of records has sold for almost £6,500 because it was autographed by the Fab Four. The unlucky owner did not realise the valuable programme was inside the box before they went to an RSPCA shop in Somerset to hand it over. When staff sifted through the old vinyl records they plucked out the Beatles magazine that had a colour photo of a John, Paul, George and Ringo on the front cover. Crucially, the item had been signed by all four members of the group in Biro at the same time, probably after one of their concerts in the early 1960s.

“It’s a love that lasts forever, It’s a love that had no past.” When John Lennon sang these words in “Don’t Let Me Down,” he was also living them. He had found new love with Yoko Ono, and his life and art were rapidly changing. Recorded during the Get Back sessions and released as the B-side to the “Get Back” single, “Don’t Let Me Down” provides a snapshot of Lennon’s private side; in addition, his passionate performance demonstrates how he possessed one of the best voices in rock. “Don’t Let Me Down” can be seen as a companion piece to “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” another song about his love for Ono. In “She’s So Heavy,” the narrator takes on an almost desperate tone: He needs his lover to save him, not just seduce him. “When you’re drowning, you don’t say ‘I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,’ you just scream,” Lennon told Rolling Stone in 1971. In Barry Miles’ Many Years from Now, Paul McCartney explained that the lyrics accurately described the emotionally turbulent period in Lennon’s life. “‘Don’t Let Me Down’ was a genuine plea. … It was saying to Yoko, ‘I’m really stepping out of line on this one. I’m really letting my vulnerability be seen, so you must not let me down.’ I think it was a genuine cry for help. It was a good song,” he said.

December 1 signals one of the cheeriest times of year for holiday music fans. Radio stations and retail stores flip their playlists to all-seasonal tunes, which increases the odds of hearing “Christmas Wrapping” and “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” in the wild. Putting together playlists of nothing but versions of “Last Christmas” becomes a perfectly viable time-waster. Not every holiday song is a winner — for example, the modern critiques of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” are long overdue — and those who despise seasonal music are in for a long few weeks. However, festive cheer more often than not beats out Grinch-like grumbling.

As the year winds to a close, there seems to be a consensus that The Claypool Lennon Delirium is one of the best new projects to come out of 2016. Consisting of Les Claypool, the legendary madman bassist of Primus, and Sean Lennon, infamous guitarist of The Ghost of A Saber Tooth Tiger, the two have been blowing minds across the US with their dark and twisted psychedelic rock. To acquaint new listeners to the project, Front Row Boston, a project produced by WGBH Music and Crossroads Presents in association with NPR Music, was there to capture the Claypool Lennon Delirium’s show in August at the House of Blues in Boston.