Beatles News
Steve Cropper was recently added to the Dave Mason Band tour, which is totally awesome, and not just because he'll now be appearing with Mason at Vancouver's Vogue Theatre next Thursday (March 21).
It's also totally awesome because three days ago I got to interview the guitar legend for the first time ever. Cross that one off the bucket list!
Cropper called me up from his home in Nashville and we chatted about a bunch of stuff. At one point I asked him about that time he was planning to work with the Beatles in 1966.
Apparently the Fab Four were fans of Cropper's guitar playing, and his production work with artists like Otis Redding--who he cowrote "(Sittin' On) the Dock of the Bay" with. The story goes that Beatles manager Brian Epstein travelled to the famed Stax Studios in Memphis to see about recording there, so I asked Cropper if that story was true.
Source: straight.com
Even the biggest Beatles fans might get surprised by numbers the Fab Four put up over the years. Start with the group’s 183 million record sales that dwarf that of every other recording artist. That number tops all the album sales of the mighty Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones combined.
Of course, The Beatles didn’t just sell LP records; the band also had an uncanny knack for cranking out hit singles. Over the years, the band topped the charts with no fewer than 20 songs. Not even Elvis put up that many.
Most Beatles fans know John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote the lion’s share of those songs. However, George Harrison got on the board late in the group’s career as well. In fact, despite the band’s phenomenal early success, The Beatles scored their biggest hits just before the band split up in 1970.
Source: cheatsheet.com
Darlene Fedun, and Wade Lawrence of the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts weigh in on why Woodstock is relevant nearly fifty years later. Patrick Oehler, Poughkeepsie Journal
Tickets to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Woodstock with a former Beatle at the original festival site will be available this week.
Ringo Starr and his All-Starr band will perform at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts on Aug.16, with tickets going on sale at 10 a.m. Friday. A presale for Bethel Woods members begins 10 a.m. Wednesday.
Bethel Woods in Sullivan County sites on the site of the original Woodstock Music and Art Fair, which was held on Aug. 15-18, 1969.
"I always love playing Bethel Woods," Starr said in a release from Bethel Woods, and how great to do it this year on the anniversary of Woodstock.
"I wasn't there at the first one, but I've always promoted what it stood for — Peace, and Love and Music," he said.
Source: Ryan Santistevan, Poughkeepsie Journal
Ariana Grande’s recent and sustained run at the pop charts has been nothing short of a marvel. And like the great pop explosions of the past—Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and Michael Jackson, to name but a few—she is poised for immortality. And rightly so.
During the week of February 19th, Grande laid claim to her place in pop music history. First, she tied the Beatles’ April 1964 record for holding down the top three spots on the Billboard Hot 100. With “7 Rings,” “Break Up with Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored,” and “Thank U, Next” lording over the Hot 100, she matched the Beatles’ 55-year-old record.
As far as hit singles go, the Fab Four’s highwater mark was memorialized with the April 4, 1964, issue of Billboard, when their music occupied the top five chart positions—the only time in pop-music history that a single act has accomplished such a feat. With “Can’t Buy Me Love” holding down the top slot, “Twist and Shout” was second and “She Loves You,” “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “Please Please Me” rounded out the top five.
Source: Kenneth Womack/salon.com
The Beatles may have been known as “the Fab Four,” but when you look at the songwriting credits two names always appear: John Lennon and Paul McCartney. It took until late in the group’s existence for George Harrison to find his way as a songwriter.
In fact, it wasn’t until Abbey Road, the band’s last studio album, that a Harrison tune (“Something”) reached No. 1 on the charts. As for Ringo Starr, the band’s carefree drummer, there weren’t many songwriting credits to speak of on any Beatles albums.
The only two Beatles songs Ringo got sole credit for were “Don’t Pass Me By” (1968) and “Octopus’s Garden” (1969). However, he did sing lead vocals on several tunes. Besides his own two tracks, you’ll catch him singing the lead on “With a Little Help From My Friends” from Sgt. Pepper’s.
However, Ringo’s biggest hit is the song people associate him with the most. That would be “Yellow Submarine,” and it came awfully close to topping the Billboard Hot 100 in 1966.
Source: cheatsheet.com
In a new interview with Joe Rogan, Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth revealed the truth about how Paul McCartney and John Lennon created the dark sound within The Beatles, and how their balance helped create it. Alternative Nation transcribed Roth and Rogan’s comments.
Roth: We will do it in the old Beatles style, here is the best way to go for somebody that’s interested [in Jazz]. The old Lennon note and McCartney note. The McCartney note is always kinda happy. I’ve actually bumped into Sir Paul over at Henson Studios and he’s really happy.
His note would be something along the lines of… [Roth sings happy song notes] Hear how pretty that sounds? I’ll do it again…[Roth does it again] Lennon? He’s the salt in the caramel, baby. He’s got it. There’s a darkness, there’s an edge, there’s a shadow. Listen to the last three notes…[Roth does a darker version of the happy song notes]
Source: Mike Mazzarone/alternativenation.net
Inspired by the late Steve Jobs’ commencement speech at Stanford University where he shared how auditing a calligraphy class in college inspired him years later to add diverse fonts to Apple computers, we set out to visit classes around campus that make us think differently about what it means to be educated. This is one in a series of drop-ins.
When professor Armando Tranquilino takes out his blue Rickenbacker bass guitar, students are not only entertained but they’re learning about the social and historical impacts of one of the world’s biggest bands.
The History of The Beatles (MUH 2370) is an unorthodox course attracting students of all majors. It’s taught face-to-face and online by Tranquilino, a composer and musician. The professor takes an in-depth look at the social changes of the 1960s and the mass influence of the Fab Four.
Source: news.fiu.edu
Staff at the British Heart Foundation (BHF) were stunned when a plastic bag left at their local fundraising store included a super-rare demo cut of The Beatles first ever single, "Love Me Do"
They say charity begins at home, but for an anonymous resident of sleepy Midhurst in West Sussex, England, it started with their record collection. Or, to be more precise, their decision to donate 25 of their old records to a nearby charity.
Staff at the British Heart Foundationthis link opens in a new tab (BHF) were stunned to find a plastic bag left at their local fundraising store included an ultra rare demo cut of The Beatles first ever single “Love Me Do.”
Source: Phil Boucher/people.com
The passionate letter, which was written in 1971, is currently up for auction in Boston
A letter written by John Lennon in 1971, in which he details his anger with his record label and the music industry at large over the ‘Two Virgins’ album he released with Yoko Ono, will be sold at an auction in the US tomorrow.
The letter has recently resurfaced and been put up for auction, with the sale – which is being conducted by RR Auctions in Boston, Massachusetts – expected to reach a price of £15,000 when bidding ends tomorrow (March 14).
Addressed to “Martin George of Rock Ink”, the auction house cites “noted Beatles expert” Perry Cox in affirming that the letter was sent to the late Beatles producer George Martin. However, author Mark Lewisohn has subsequently told The Times that he believes that Lennon was actually responding to the journalist Martin George, who wrote for “a magazine or a weekly underground newspaper called Ink“.
Source: Sam Moore /nme.com
SATURDAY 4 MAY 2019
LONDON PALLADIUM
On May 4th at London’s Palladium, The Analogues will bring to life one of music’s most cherished and expansive LPs, The White Album – playing the 30-track record in its entirety, from the very first to very last note.
It takes a special kind of obsessive to perfectly recreate on stage an album never made to be performed live. But The Analogues are no ordinary Beatles fans. They are the type to instigate a viral campaign to help locate the exact bell sound from “Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My Money", listening to every submission on the phone (they eventually found it in a Maritime store) – or spend months trying to track down a real harpsichord, even if it only appears on one Beatles track (“Piggies”).
The Beatles stopped performing in 1966, fed up of the constant hysteria at their shows that began to inhibit rather than propel the band forward. This decision meant albums such as 1968’s The White Album were driven by studio experimentation and, while they changed music, fans were never able to experience the records live. Indeed, many thought it could not be done.
Fifty years on, The Analogues have gone to extraordinary lengths to bring the album to life. Following on from performances of Magical Mystery Tour and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Dutch five-piece now aims to tackle arguably their most ambitious project to date. Their starting point remains the same: musical authenticity – the band search the planet to locate every period-correct instrument to create a near note-perfect homage – every guitar, piano, synth, and in this case, Mellotron organ. “We had a difficult time finding a good Mellotron as not many were made”, explains drummer Fred Gehring. “We ended up owning serial number 10. We understand Sir Paul owns number 9.”
For More Information: http://www.theanalogues.net/
