Lennon, McCartney and New Orleans: The Beatles reunion that almost happened
When most people think of The Beatles and New Orleans, they think of 1964 and the Fab Four's one and only concert in the Crescent City, which took place before a swooning crowd -- kept at bay by a swarm of uniformed, tackle-happy NOPD officers -- at City Park Stadium. But just more than 10 years after that brief but eternal half-hour set, the city came tantalizingly close to hosting another Beatles milestone, in the form of a reunion of none other than John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
That meeting, for which much of the music world had been hoping since the legendary band's 1970 dissolution, never actually happened, of course. But the story behind that near-miss, that almost-history, that elusive happily-ever-after is nicely laid out in author Richard White's book "Come Together: Lennon & McCartney in the Seventies" ($18.95, paperback, Overlook Omnibus). It's a fascinating tale, and one that can be counted on to leave fans of music and of New Orleans wondering wistfully about what could have been.
As the title suggests, White's densely written and painstakingly researched book focuses on Lennon and McCartney's often acrimonious post-Beatles period, which he covers in the sort of detail -- with frequent but still interesting tangents thrown in -- that music lovers will lap up eagerly. While much of it involves the pulling together of previously reported material, it is pulled together nicely, as White takes bits and pieces of various interviews and memoirs to construct a telling and cohesive whole.
By: Mike Scott
Source: Nola.com
