Beatles News
The entry was published in the book 'Living in the Material World' by his widow, Olivia Harrison. George Harrison's 1969 diary reveals the moments before and after he left the Beatles
The Beatles, a pioneering band known for exploring various music styles, faced a turning point one fateful afternoon. Tensions were already high among the bandmates, but a heated argument with Paul McCartney pushed George Harrison to his breaking point. Harrison, who practiced Transcendental Meditation, decided to walk away from the band. Later that day, he penned a short diary entry that has since become significant for Beatles fans.
That afternoon, the four Beatles—John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr—were working on their track “Get Back” at Twickenham Film Studios, with cameras recording their session. Beatles music publisher Dick James visited them and discussed Northern Songs’ recent purchase of the Lawrence Wright Music catalog with McCartney and Starr, according to BeatlesBible.
Following this, McCartney played several piano tracks for James, including “The Long And Winding Road,” “Let It Be,” “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” “Don’t Let Me Down,” and “I’ve Got A Feeling.” The group then worked on “Get Back.” After lunch, however, Harrison, unable to bear the simmering tensions, walked out.
Later that day, "The Quiet Beatle" sat at his desk and penned a diary entry dated January 10, 1969. The entry recounted Harrison’s experiences and events of the day: “Got up, went to Twickenham rehearsed until lunchtime. Left the Beatles, went home and in the evening, did 'King of Fuh' at Trident Studio. Had chips later at Klaus and Christine’s, went home.” This diary entry was later published in the 2011 book “Living in the Material World” by Olivia Harrison, George Harrison's widow.
Source: Neha B./good.is
On August 23, 1964, The Beatles performed for the first time at the Hollywood Bowl. With that legendary performance, they unwittingly advanced the now-familiar outdoor concert. A gig John Lennon called “marvelous.”
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Martin Lewis, a renowned Beatles historian, told Variety the 1964 Hollywood Bowl show was the first of three concerts The Beatles performed at the venue. The following year, they played two more. “Obviously it not only was a big deal for The Beatles, but I think it really kicked off the outdoor rock concert. By the next year, it was stadiums and beyond,” he said.
Meanwhile, Lewis examined the period leading up to their debut at the Hollywood Bowl. He views The Beatles’ rising popularity in the United States as a pre-internet version of going viral. Said Lewis, “On Christmas Day ’63, no one had heard of them. But from then till February 9th (of 1964), in those 45 days, they’d become the biggest thing ever.” A reported 73 million people watched The Beatles perform on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Tickets for the first show went on sale in April 1964 and sold out in less than four hours. Because fans had to purchase tickets in person, hundreds camped on Highland Avenue in Los Angeles. The line of fans stretched nearly a mile, close to Hollywood Boulevard.
Like most concerts during Beatlemania, chaos ensued during the gig. The frenzied crowd of 18,700 screamed louder than the band’s amplifiers, making it hard to hear John, Paul, George, and Ringo perform.
Source: Thom Donovan/americansongwriter.com
The Beatles arrive at Friendship Airport before performing at the Civic Center in Sept. of 1964.
On Sept. 13, 1964, John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr hit a one-day stop in Charm City on their first tour of the United States, playing two concerts at the Baltimore Civic Center, now known as CFG Bank Arena.
According to the Maryland Center for History and Culture, an estimated 26,000 fans packed into the venue between the two concerts. Over 70 police officers were lined three-deep in the orchestra pit ahead of the stage.
Following the concert, the Beatles had an all-night private party at the revolving restaurant at the top of the Holiday Inn. They left by limousine to travel to Pittsburgh, the next leg of their 32-performance tour.
Source: Hannah Gaskill/baltimoresun.com
Paul McCartney is one of the most famous men on the planet today, and he could claim that kind of notoriety back in 1970 as well. You’d think his life at the time would have consisted of a series of parties and celebrations.
But due to the tumult caused by the infighting and eventual breakup of The Beatles, McCartney was much more inclined at the time to stay close to home with his wife Linda, away from the rest of the world. That desire comes to the fore on “Every Night,” one of the finest songs on McCartney, his solo debut album. A “Night” to Remember
Even though The Beatles’ breakup was announced in conjunction with the release of the McCartney album in April 1970, it had been a done deal for quite some time by that point. John Lennon had given his notice back in September 1969 at a group meeting. The band just decided not to publicize it since they still had product in the pipeline.
The breakup devastated McCartney, as he underwent a period of heavy depression and drinking in its wake. He had been the one who had tried to keep the band afloat as the members pulled in different directions. But his reluctance to go along with the other three members in choosing a business manager also caused a lot of the friction.
Source: Jim Beviglia/americansongwriter.com
Some myths apparently never die. For some, it’s called conventional wisdom.
The conventional wisdom that Yoko Ono broke up the most famous pop group in history is a myth that surely should have faded away by this point. Yet, it hangs around, like the last stubborn dinosaur taking a breath long after the comet hits.
John Lennon and Ono first met each other in 1966. At the time, The Beatles were in a stage of transition. The group had gone from mop-top uniformity into splintering paths that would yield their most iconic work, but it marked the subsequent growing apart that would spell the end of the group.
But somehow it wasn’t the group growing into different people, nor was it creative or business differences – it had to have been the woman hanging around. Ono was quite the sitting duck in the blame game that followed the group’s dissolution.
Ono is perceived as a wrench in the works of The Beatles unit, yet the group’s eventual demise was already set in motion by the time she showed up. Her frequent presence in the studio was dubbed by the other Beatles as ‘intrusive’, but there is little to suggest much intrusion beyond her mere presence and giving an opinion at the request of Lennon. George Harrison’s issue with Ono was that the ‘bitch’ took one of his biscuits during a studio session. Seriously. Perhaps she should have just stood behind Lennon like the other wives of The Beatles rather than side by side as equal partners.
Read more:
Can we please move on from thinking pop music is the best thing ever?
Often Ono is portrayed as a hanger-on, someone who was desperate for recognition and sought to hijack Lennon and the Fab Four for her own personal gain and control. But Ono was already an established, financially independent, and respected artist by the time she met Lennon. If anything, it was Lennon who would have been in thrall and eager to impress. Is it a mystery that a working-class musician from Liverpool with ambitions that far outweighed his surroundings would fall in love with someone like Ono? She would have seemed sophisticated, liberated, credible, and, rather datedly, exotic. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what the appeal was.
Source: Derek McArthur/heraldscotland.com
Paul McCartney famously penned “Hey Jude” for John Lennon’s son, Julian. Subsequently, it became one of the Beatles’ most famous tracks. Even today, decades after its release, it remains a classic and an inspiring anthem in the rock space.
Though McCartney penned this song, Lennon apparently fought for one key lyric to stay in. He marked the line as his favorite in the entire song. Find out which line that is, below.
Hey Jude, don’t make it bad.
Take a sad song and make it better.
Remember to let her into your heart,
Then you can start to make it better.
While McCartney was mocking up what would become “Hey Jude,” Lennon and Yoko Ono gave their two cents on the project–at the request of Macca.
“John and Yoko came to visit and they were right behind me over my right shoulder, standing up, listening to it as I played it to them, and when I got to the line, ‘The movement you need is on your shoulder,’” McCartney once said. “I looked over my shoulder and I said, ‘I’ll change that, it’s a bit crummy. I was just blocking it out,’ and John said, ‘You won’t, you know. That’s the best line in it!’
That’s collaboration,” he continued. “When someone’s that firm about a line that you’re going to junk, and he said, ‘No, keep it in.’ So of course you love that line twice as much because it’s a little stray, it’s a little mutt that you were about to put down and it was reprieved and so it’s more beautiful than ever. I love those words now…”
Source: Alex Hopper/americansongwriter.com
The Beatles may have broken up over half a century ago but now Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Ringo Starr and the estates of the late great John Lennon and George Harrison have made a huge announcement that is 60 years in the making.
For the first time in decades, the Fab Four are bringing their 1964 US albums together for a new mono vinyl box set to celebrate 60 years of Beatlesmania.
Originally compiled for US release between January 1964 and March 1965, seven iconic Beatles albums have been analogue cut for 180-gram audiophile vinyl from their original mono master tapes to release globally on November 22.
Meet The Beatles!, The Beatles’ Second Album, A Hard Day’s Night, Something New, The Beatles’ Story, Beatles ’65 and The Early Beatles have been out of print on vinyl for almost 30 years.
The seven mono albums are being released in a new eight-LP box set titled The Beatles: 1964 US Albums In Mono, with all available individually, except for The Beatles’ Story.
As shared in the Beatles announcement: “On February 7, 1964, scores of screaming, swooning fans gathered at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to catch a glimpse of John, Paul, George and Ringo as The Beatles took their first steps on American soil. Two nights later, on February 9, 73 million viewers in the U.S. and millions more in Canada tuned in to CBS to watch The Beatles make their American television debut on The Ed Sullivan Show. In this cultural watershed moment in American history, The Beatles performed five songs on the live broadcast. Beatlemania, already in full, feverish bloom in The Beatles’ native U.K. and developing in the US, exploded with blissful fervour across America and around the world. The British Invasion had begun.”
The Beatles announcement added: “Shortly before The Beatles’ history-making Stateside visit, Capitol Records secured exclusive US rights to release the band’s recordings in a deal with EMI. The storied, already iconic record label rush released Meet The Beatles! on January 20, 1964. The album features 12 tracks drawn largely from the band’s U.K. album With The Beatles (released November 22, 1963). Showcasing the band’s original songwriting, Capitol replaced five cover songs from the U.K. album with three originals: both sides of The Beatle’s first Capitol single (I Want To Hold Your Hand/I Saw Her Standing There) and the latest UK single’s B-side (This Boy). The album hit Number 1 and held the top spot for 11 weeks, launching a hitmaking string of Beatles albums compiled, titled and packaged by Capitol for the American market. By early April, more than 3.6 million Meet The Beatles! albums had been sold, and on the singles front, The Beatles swept the Billboard Hot 100’s top 5 positions on April 4, a stunning chart record that still stands.”
Source: express.co.uk
Mono, an 8LP vinyl box set of Beatles’ albums compiled for U.S. release between January 1964 and March 1965 by Capitol Records and United Artists.
The seven albums (The Beatles’ Story is a double) are as follows:
Meet The Beatles!
The Beatles’ Second Album
A Hard Day’s Night (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Something New
The Beatles’ Story (2LP)
Beatles ’65
The Early Beatles
As is reasonably well known these days, Capitol rushed out many of these records which featured different track listings to any of the UK counterparts, often including what were non-album singles in the UK. This gave American audiences a similar, yet completely different, introduction to the to the Fab Four in th early part of their career. This continued until 1967 when Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was the first album to feature an identical running order on both sides of the Atlantic.
All the albums in the new box set have been analog cut for 180-gram audiophile vinyl from their original mono master tapes. New vinyl lacquers were cut by Kevin Reeves at Nashville’s East Iris Studios. If you need more details, here you go: “These albums were cut for vinyl from the original master tapes using a completely analog signal path and with constant reference to first generation pressings of the original albums. They were made using a Studer A80 master recorder with analog preview & program paths, and an Neumann VMS70 cutting lathe originally installed in Capitol Studios in 1971. This specific all-analog cutting technique allows faithful representation of the full musical range and dynamics present on the original tapes”.
The albums also feature faithfully replicated artwork and new four-panel inserts with essays written by American Beatles historian and author Bruce Spizer. All the records in the box will be available separately, except for The Beatles’ Story
Source: superdeluxeedition.com
In 2000, Beatles nut Mark Stanfield achieved the rare feat of releasing a genuinely good Beatles film. He’s the writer behind Two Of Us, an imaginative exercise that dramatised the legendary night, in 1976, when Paul McCartney visited his formerly estranged pal John Lennon at the latter’s apartment in New York. Directed by Let It Be filmmaker Michael Lindsay-Hogg, it’s become a cult favourite among those in the know.
Now a professor at the University Of Minnesota, Stanfield has reworked the film into a new play starring Barry Sloane (Shameless) as John and Jay Johnson (who played John’s cousin Stan Parkes in biopic Nowhere Boy) as Macca. Partly inspired by the 1981 movie My Dinner With Andre, it gives fascinating insight for Fabs fans, as well as a thought-provoking drama that explores universal ideas about fractured relationships, regret and reconciliation. No: he doesn’t fancy doing one for the Gallagher brothers.
Hi Mark! Of all the Beatles periods, why did you focus on this one in particular?
Mark Stanfield: “Back in the ‘90s, I had seen an interview that Paul did on the Charlie Rose show. I couldn’t help but notice that when they brought up the subject of John, his whole face – his tone of voice, everything – changed. I remember thinking: ‘Wow, that’s underneath all the showbiz, thumbs-up Macca and all that stuff. He’s really sad; he’s really lost someone dear to him.’ I thought: ‘There’s something there.’”
Source: Jordan Bassett/nme.com
Selecting a favorite Beatles track (or tracks) is wholly dependent on the listener’s unique experience and tastes, and John Lennon’s favorite Beatles songs are no exception.
While the Fab Four’s highly public and equally arduous breakup in the late 1960s and early ‘70s might’ve made it seem like the Beatles were irreparably at odds with one another, the musicians were still able to give credit where credit was due—with the odd diss track or sideways comment in an interview, of course.
Lennon’s reputation for saying exactly what was on his mind almost preceded his musical legacy, which is how we’ve come to find which Beatles songs he despised and, conversely, the ones he loved. Let’s take a look at songs that fit in the latter category.
“Help”
John Lennon wrote “Help!” for the 1965 Beatles’ musical comedy of the same name. In a 1980 interview with Playboy, Lennon said, “I didn’t realize it at the time. I just wrote the song because I was commissioned to write it for the movie, but later, I knew I was really crying out for help. It was my fat Elvis period.”
He expressed similar sentiments in a Rolling Stone interview, saying “Help!” was one of his favorite Beatles songs because “I meant it. It’s real. The lyric is as good now as it was then. It is no different, and it makes me feel secure to know that I was aware of myself then. It was just me singing “help,” and I meant it.”
Source: Melanie Davis/americansongwriter.com
