Beatles News
In 2027, a wildly ambitious cinematic project is slated to come to life: four biopics about The Beatles, each focusing on one member of the Fab Four. The casting is already tantalizing, with Paul Mescal apparently set to play Paul McCartney and Barry Keoghan confirmed to be taking the role of Ringo Starr.
While details are scarce, it seems likely that these films will offer something Rashomon-like—four perspectives on the same iconic story.
The idea of a Beatles Cinematic Universe is exciting. But what if it didn’t stop there? What if these films laid the groundwork for something even bigger: a Rock Cinematic Universe?
Allow me to propose Hollywood’s next blockbuster phenomenon: an interconnected web of movies chronicling the history of rock music, with a shared cast and storylines crossing over from one film to the next. Modeled after the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Rock Cinematic Universe (RCU) would capture the genre’s sprawling history.
Fans of the MCU love a good crossover event, and rock music has plenty of those to offer. The Beatles' history alone is full of thrilling intersections. It’s conceivable that Roy Orbison will appear in the story, in scenes devoted to their 1963 UK tour; Phil and Ronnie Spector may pop up in the mid-60s; Jimi Hendrix will potentially wow Paul and George with his blistering performance of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” at London’s Saville Theatre. Each of these figures could spin off into films of their own, creating a sprawling narrative web.
Roy Orbison’s story might naturally lead to the tale of Jeff Lynne and the Electric Light Orchestra. Phil and Ronnie Spector could open the door to a film about the songwriting duo Lieber and Stoller. Jimi Hendrix’s story could bring in Pete Townshend and The Who, complete with the infamous coin toss at Monterey Pop Festival. These interconnected films wouldn’t just explore isolated figures but would illuminate the relationships, collaborations and inspirations have made rock thrive.
Source: Darryn King/forbes.com
Billy Sheehan is widely considered one of the premiere rock bassists, with a resume that includes being an original member of Mr. Big, The Winery Dogs, and David Lee Roth’s solo band.
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As talented a bassist as Sheehan is, for him, no one in the rock world surpasses Paul McCartney. Billy shared his respect for the iconic Beatle during a recent interview on The Mistress Carrie Podcast.
During their conversation, host Mistress Carrie asked Sheehan if he could name a song with what he’d consider the best bass line.
Sheehan’s initial response was the 1966 Yardbirds song “Lost Woman,” which featured Paul Samwell-Smith on bass. He then moved on to pour praise on McCartney’s playing.
“Almost anything McCartney did is just brilliant,” he declared. “Some people don’t get it. I think if [you] give me enough time, I’ll get them to get it.”
Sheehan continued, “I would be happy to explain to anyone why Paul McCartney is probably the greatest … really, just a really great, great player.”
The 71-year-old musician then drew positive comparisons between McCartney and lauded Motown session bassist James Jamerson.
Source: Matt Friedlander/americansongwriter.com
If you asked fans of either band, they could probably tell you a few key differences between the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Though they are somewhat cut from the same cloth–both having blues inspirations and being apart of the “British Invasion”–they stand in contrast as well.
According to Keith Richards, there is one main difference that set the two bands apart. Find out what that is, below.
Well, I never kept a dollar past sunset
It always burned a hole in my pants
Never made a school mama happy
Never blew a second chance, oh no
I need a love to keep me happy
I need a love to keep me happy
Baby, baby, keep me happy
Baby, baby, keep me happy
Before digging deep enough to get into conversations about sound and attitude, the Stones and the Beatles have apparent differences that you can see at first glance. According to Richards, he marveled at the fact the Beatles had four unique singers while the Stones only had one, Mick Jagger. It’s something even Paul McCartney has marveled at in the past, despite having lived it first hand.
“I remember Keith Richards saying to me, ‘You had four singers. We only had one,’” McCartney once recalled. “Little things like that will set me off and I think, ‘Wow.’ That is pretty uncanny. And writers. Not just singers, but writers.”
Source: Alex Hopper/americansongwriter.com
During the age of Beatlemania, the personal lives of the Fab Four were under constant scrutiny, and countless girls dreamed of being married to Paul McCartney. To the disappointment of many, McCartney was engaged to actress Jane Asher at the height of the Beatles’ fame in the ’60s, and he went on to be married three times, and famously had an enduring musical partnership with his first wife, photographer turned Wings cofounder Linda McCartney.
After his wife Linda’s untimely death, Paul married his second wife, Heather Mills, but the marriage didn’t last very long, and was plagued by tabloid scandal. Currently, McCartney is happily married to Nancy Shevell. Read on to take a deep dive into the musical icon’s marriages and learn which songs he wrote about the women in his life.
In 1959, Paul McCartney began dating Dot Rhone, a local Liverpool girl. They briefly became engaged when she unexpectedly got pregnant in 1960, but called it off after she had a miscarriage and were officially broken up by 1962. McCartney also admitted to having several affairs during the Beatles’ early days in Hamburg, Germany, while he was engaged to Rhone.
Source: Abbey Bender/yahoo.com
John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s fifth studio album, Double Fantasy, hit #1 on the Billboard 200 and went on to spend eight weeks in the top spot.
The album was released in November and initially didn’t perform well, but after Lennon’s Dec. 8 death the album became a commercial success. It was eventually certified triple Platinum by the RIAA.
Double Fantasy, recorded at the Hit Factory in New York City, featured such songs as “(Just Like) Starting Over,” which hit #1 three weeks after Lennon’s death; “Woman,” which peaked at #2; and “Watching The Wheels,” which peaked at #10.
The album went on to win Album of the Year at the 1991 Grammy Awards.
Source: Jill Lances/1430wcmy.com
In 1967 The Beatles were at the peak of their powers. The band had released the masterpiece 'Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' that May, revolutionising popular music and topping the UK charts for 23 consecutive weeks.
The ground-breaking album was the soundtrack to the so-called 'Summer of Love', capturing the psychedelic zeitgeist. The band's next move continued with the experimental sound they had been developing since 1966's 'Revolver' and became 'Magical Mystery Tour', which was released as a double EP in December 1967.
Its initial US release included the classic tracks 'Hello, Goodbye', 'Strawberry Fields Forever', 'Penny Lane' and 'All You Need Is Love' and the album was loved by fans while garnering critical acclaim. However, the film of the same name it served as the soundtrack for was considerably less adored.
The 'Magical Mystery Tour' film aired on BBC1 in black and white on Boxing Day 1967. It was the third Beatles film, following 'A Hard Day's Night' and 'Help', which were released in 1964 and 1965 respectively.
Much of 'Magical Mystery Tour' was improvised and its story follows a group of people on a coach trip who then start to experience strange and surreal things. About its production, Ringo Starr said: "Paul had a great piece of paper – just a blank piece of white paper with a circle on it. The plan was: 'We start here, and we've got to do something here'. We filled it in as we went along."
Source: Dan Haygarth/uk.news.yahoo.com
While many of us most commonly associate December 26 with Boxing Day or the start of Kwanzaa, for Fab Four Fans, the day after Christmas also marks the anniversary of Paul McCartney’s painful mishap that led to his iconic mid-1960s Beatles style.
Indeed, one of the oft-forgotten perks of being one of the biggest rock stars of the time is that when you suffer a blunder that alters your physical appearance, you can start a whole trend around it. Paul McCartney’s Blunder Led To Beatles’ Iconic Style.
On December 26, 1965, Paul McCartney was visiting his family over the winter holidays when his friend, Tara Browne, paid him a visit. The Beatle, at the height of his fame and enjoying the trappings of the well-to-do rock star life, had a couple of mopeds at his disposal, so he thought he and Browne could take a joy ride together. While the friends rode to McCartney’s cousin’s house, the pair admired the scenery, including the night’s full moon.
“It was an incredible full moon. It was really huge,” McCartney later recalled in Anthology. “I said something about the moon, and [Tara] said, ‘Yeah,’ and I suddenly had a freeze-frame image of myself at that angle to the ground when it’s too late to pull back up again. I was still looking at the moon, and then I looked at the ground, and it seemed to take a few minutes to think, ‘Ah, too bad. I’m going to smack that pavement with my face.’ Bang!”
Source: americansongwriter.com
John was not a fan of some of Paul's later work with The Beatles.
As the 1960s drew to an end, artistic differences within The Beatles began to take their toll. John Lennon and Paul McCartney were the primary creative force behind the band's monumental success, with the vast majority of songs written together and jointly credited as Lennon-McCartney.
The two were able to draw the best out of each other as songwriters - with their contrasting approaches often meeting in the middle to create greatness. About their partnership, Music and Musicians magazine's Wilfred Mellors wrote in 1972: "Opposite poles generate electricity: between John and Paul the sparks flew. John's fiery iconoclasm was tempered by Paul's lyrical grace, while Paul's wide-eyed charm was toughened by John's resilience."
But as time went on, they seemingly wanted to do very different things and had increasingly dissimilar views of what their songs should be like. So much so that, as the ECHO has recently looked at, John treated much of Paul's later Beatles work with disdain. He disliked the album 'Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band', which was Paul's brainchild, and he was very disparaging about the song 'Let it Be'.
This was also a theme of the recording sessions for 'Abbey Road'. Though the 1970 album 'Let it Be' was the final to be released by the band, 'Abbey Road' was the last album they recorded.
Source: Dan Haygarth/liverpoolecho.co.uk
Very rarely does a member of The Beatles look back in retrospect and say “I wish.” However, rarely doesn’t mean never. That being so, Paul McCartney, one of the greatest songwriters of all time, has actually voiced his humility and acknowledged what songs simply dumbfound him as a writer. Matter of fact, he’s gone so far as to say that he wished he had written numerous songs.
Well, for the musicians in question, McCartney’s envy has to be better than any awards or accolades they’ve ever won. The two musicians in question are Ray Davies of The Kinks and Sting. Frankly, for these Brits, this is seemingly a higher honor than being knighted by the Royal Family. Nevertheless, the two songs of theirs McCartney wishes he had written were Davies’ “See My Friends” and Sting’s “Fields of Gold.”
The Kinks and The Beatles came from the same era, taste, and country. Thus, the two certainly had some musical and cultural parallels in their earlier years. That being so, when The Kinks released “See My Friends” in 1965, McCartney was completely taken aback and jealous by the sound they achieved. Particularly, the trailblazing creation of raga rock.
Frankly, you might have The Kinks to thank for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour. Though, you devout Beatles fans probably don’t want to hear such a take. Well, McCartney, in a way attested to that fact. In Kink: An Autobiography, Davies recalls Paul McCartney, stating, “You b—! How dare you! I should have made that record.”
Sting’s Receives A Stamp of Approval
McCartney’s praise for his fellow Brits does not stop with his ’60s contemporary, as he also praised Sting and his solo career. During a Q&A session at The Liverpool Institute in 2018, McCartney stated, “I liked Sting’s ‘Fields Of Gold’” and “I thought, ‘Y’know what, I should have written that.’” “How dare he?’ I told him: ‘You stole my song.’ I thought that was a nice one, y’know,” Paul McCartney Humorusly added.
Source:Peter Burditt/americansongwriter.com
The drummer shared the heart-warming message with his followers
Ringo Starr has sent an uplifting message to fans today wishing them a Merry Christmas
Ringo Starr has sent an uplifting message to fans today wishing them a Merry Christmas. The Beatles' drummer uploaded a picture of himself to Instagram wearing a Santa hat and holding the peace sign up.
The 84-year-old said: “Peace and love from London. I wanted to wish everybody a happy merry Christmas. I hope you all have a wonderful time. Love, love, peace and love and don’t forget. Happy new year peace of love.”
The festive message was reciprocated by fans who returned well wishes and cheer. One fan responded “Merry Christmas Sir Ringo! Sending lots of peace and love!!”
Another fan added: “Merry Christmas dear Ringo, God bless you and your family”, while further responses included: “Merry Christmas Ringo I love you” and “Peace and love, Merry Christmas Legend!”
Ringo wasn’t the only member of the Fab Four to wish fans a Merry Christmas. Sir Paul McCartney shared a message earlier on, he said: “Happy Christmas all around the world and have a heck of a Hanukkah.”
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Earlier this month the legendary pair reunited when Paul introduced the drummer to the stage in the final London show on the Get Back tour at the O2. They performed Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Helter Skelter before sharing a hug.
"I've had a great night and I love you all" Sir Ringo said later as he walked offstage. Sir Paul and Sir Ringo, who are the last surviving members of The Beatles, have played together a number of times since the band broke up in 1970. That includes at Sir Ringo's 2015 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction and on Sir Paul's last tour, Freshen Up, in 2019.
Source: Courtney Eales/liverpoolecho.co.uk
