Beatles News
Ringo Starr and his All Starr Band
Fifty years after helping lead the British invasion in America and transforming pop culture, the most underappreciated Beatle has arguably become the most beloved. Ringo Starr is no longer mobbed by screaming packs of fans. But, by no means is the world famous drummer hanging in the background. He’s busy laying down tracks for a new album, and about to embark on another tour of his All-Starr Band; he’s publishing books — and he’s still making the case for peace and love wherever he goes.
“We always tried to get out of those crap things, but that time we got caught,” George Harrison recalled, referring to the Beatles’ visit to the British Embassy after their first US concert, held at the old Washington Coliseum on February 11, 1964. Accustomed, after a year of Beatlemania in Britain, to the crush of official events, the Fab Four were dreading it. Then they caught a slight, if short-lived, break.
IT was 50 years ago that The Beatles filmed sequences of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ on the West Somerset Railway ... and the anniversary is to be marked. Crowcombe Heathfield Station, where Ringo rode a bicycle along theMinehead-bound platform, is in line for enhancement.
LOS ANGELES — There's an easy way to give pop music's most performance-hardened stars a case of the butterflies: Ask them to perform in front of The Beatles. Many of today's top artists gathered Monday night to honor The Beatles' legacy, with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr in attendance and late members John Lennon and George Harrison always in mind, at The Recording Academy's taping of "The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to The Beatles."
Almost 50 years ago, Beatlemania kicked off in America and changed the face of rock 'n' roll. But the whole Beatles phenomenon as we know it — with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr — might never have happened without some good old-fashioned U.S. red tape.
The Beatles were honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award Saturday at a pre-Grammy event in Los Angeles. Ringo Starr was joined by George Harrison's widow, Olivia, and John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, at the ceremony.
On Feb 7, 1964, just 77 days after the JFK assassination, the Fab Four stepped off of Pan Am Flight 101 at the newly-minted Kennedy Airport. The city and the Beatles would never be the same. They say the world doesn't change in a day. But one day, it did.
The Beatles superstars performed Sir Paul's song Queenie Eye to a rapturous crowd including Yoko Ono at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles. Sir Paul also proved members of the Fab Four can still trump the Rolling Stones when his collaboration with Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear, entitled Cut Me Some Slack, beat Doom And Gloom by the veteran British band.
When Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr play the Grammys Sunday night, it will transport a lot of us back to a watershed time in America when everything seemed possible. It takes Mike Mitchell back to the magic moment 50 years ago when he stood on the stage with a camera as the Beatles' performed in DC, their very first concert in the United States.
