Beatles News
The Beatles have announced a new film documenting their final days.
The project is a collaboration with acclaimed Academy Award winning director Sir Peter Jackson and is based around 55 hours of never-released footage of The Beatles in the recording studio during January 1969.
These studio sessions resulted in The Beatles' Grammy Award winning album Let It Be.
The filming was originally intended for a television special that became the documentary Let It Be and ended with The Beatles' legendary performance on the roof of the Apple Records London office, which took place exactly 50 years ago today.
In a statement on The Beatles website , Peter Jackson said, "The 55 hours of never-before-seen footage and 140 hours of audio made available to us, ensures this movie will be the ultimate ‘fly on the wall’ experience that Beatles fans have long dreamt about."
Source: Jason Davis/wptv.com
In 1985, the Beatle gave the King of Pop a business tip. What McCartney didn't realize is that Jackson would play him at his own game.
Offering helpful advice to a friend is often human nature at its best. When that advice comes back to bite the very person who offered it in the first place, well, it can be a cruel twist of fate.
Just ask Paul McCartney. The Beatles singer/songwriter found himself to be on the wrong end of the above scenario when words of wisdom he imparted to friend Michal Jackson came back to haunt him over rights to the Beatles song catalog, which Jackson would acquire in 1985.
McCartney taught Jackson how lucrative it was to own other artist's catalogs
McCartney and Jackson became friendly in the mid-1970s when they met to discuss possible songwriting collaborations. The two would eventually go on to have hits with the duets “The Girl Is Mine,” the lead single from Jackson’s hit album Thriller (1982), and “Say, Say, Say” that was featured on McCartney’s album Pipes of Peace (1983).
Source: biography.com
Rocking out on a London rooftop on a raw January afternoon 50 years ago today, The Beatles delivered what would be their final live performance.
The surprise midday concert, which came to a halt after police responded to 3 Saville Row, capped a month-long recording session for what would eventually become the "Let It Be" album and film.
Backed by keyboardist Billy Preston, Beatles John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr performed five new songs for the crowd below and the few trusted insiders on the rooftop of their office building. The Fab Four would never play a live show again and packed it up the following year.
The 42-minute performance was recorded onto two eight-track machines by longtime producer George Martin, engineer Glyn Johns and tape operator Alan Parsons. Songs included "Get Back," "Don't Let Me Down," "I've Got A Feeling," "One After 909" and "Dig a Pony," as well as off-the-cuff bits of "Danny Boy," "I Want You (She's So Heavy)," "A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody" and "God Save the Queen."
Source: masslive.com
LUNCHTIME, Thursday January 30, 1969. The stately calm of Savile Row, long famed for distinguished tailoring and softly spoken service, has been invaded by the raucous sound of electric guitars, pounding drums and belting rock'n'roll singing. The owners of Number Three, a fine five-storey building, are making a din. The sound of neighbours' tut-tutting is loud but not as loud as the music
On the pavement below there's a growing and motley crowd, many of whom normally have no reason to come here.
To general amazement and with no warning whatsoever The Beatles - THE BEATLES! - are playing on the roof.
They can't be seen by the hundreds of eyes peering upwards from the street, but windows with a view are full of faces and people with access to neighbouring roofs are scurrying up, among them a man well into middle age in overcoat and trilby, smoking a pipe.
It's a cold day and the band are well wrapped up - Ringo in his wife Maureen's shiny orange mac, George and John in fur coats.
Source: DAVID ROBSON/express.co.uk
Paul McCartney is one the richest entertainers in the world with a stunning net worth of $1.2 billion. When it comes to how he earned it, well, the easy answer is he's a Beatle, a member of Wings, and a solo artist with a music catalog (much of which he wrote and composed) that continues to earn royalties to this day. McCartney is one of the most successful composers and performers of all time. More than 2,200 artists have covered his Beatles song Yesterday, making it one of the most covered songs in popular music history. Needless to say, he earns money almost every time it is covered. Paul McCartney has won eight Grammy Awards. He has written or co-written 32 songs that have reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. He continues to be one of the top earning celebrities year after year. So how did Sir Paul McCartney come to be so incredibly wealthy?
Source: Brian Warner/celebritynetworth.com
Composed by Rachel Fuller, this moving album was created to celebrate animals all over the globe – and there’s even a special memorial performance.
If you believe in a world where pets are treated with kindness and compassion, then Animal Requiem is the perfect album for you.
When our close companions pass away, many people struggle to cope with the loss – but this thoughtful animal charity album aims to celebrate the positive impact they have had on our lives.
Written by Pete Townsend’s (The Who) wife Rachel Fuller, the nine-track record is a heartwarming collection of pieces including The Beatles’ hit song ‘Blackbird’.
It’s the first time a Beatles song has ever been overdubbed – but as a long-time animal rights supporter Sir Paul McCartney was keen to be involved in the project.
Source: By Helena Asprou/classicfm.com
On a cold, gusty, grey afternoon half a century ago, George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr climbed the five storeys of their office building at 3 Savile Row in central London. They then made their way out onto the roof, where they played an unannounced 42-minute set for friends, employees and office workers who clambered out of windows and onto adjacent roofs. A crowd steadily gathered in the street below.
There was no way of knowing it then, but Thursday, Jan. 30, 1969, turned out to be the last time The Beatles performed together in public.
Accompanying them throughout the impromptu show was the keyboardist Billy Preston, who had been invited by Harrison to join them in rehearsals a week earlier.
Source: The Canadian Press/nationalpost.com
Bob Dylan’s influence on the shape of British music has been examined in great detail by a new historian.
Tudor Jones, an academic historian with a strong background in political historian and honorary research, has collected his new study into a book titled Bob Dylan And The British Sixties and details Dylan’s significant impact on some of Britain’s most acclaimed icons.
Jones details how Dylan significantly influenced Beatles duo John Lennon and George Harrison as well as The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger. Dylan’s far-reaching influence also had a prominent effect on Pete Townshend of The Who.
“Dylan’s influence on songwriting in modern British popular culture during the 1960s was profound and far-reaching,” says Jones who has vast experience having conducted research through Coventry University.
Source: Far Out Staff/faroutmagazine.co.uk
On January 30 1969, The Beatles — the band that had reshaped popular music and culture in a creative arc of only eight years (and with whom I had worked for that entire dizzying period) — played an impromptu show in London, immortalised as “the rooftop concert”.
The six-song set was staged atop 3 Savile Row, the building we had bought as the headquarters for their adventurous multimedia company, Apple Corps. Although none of us realised it at the time, it was to be their final live performance as a band. And as far as rock shows go, it was a great one.
On that freezing rooftop in London, I saw and heard everything that was great about The Beatles. The humour, the look (John and Ringo wore their wives’ coats for the performance) and, of course, the music. But I also saw the frayed ends and the bitterness that was already spilling out in my office at Apple, where I had been appointed as executive director the year before, having spent most of the 1960s at Brian Epstein’s management company.
Source: Peter Brown /ft.com
A newly discovered letter from 1968 reveals a label exec's concerns about its pornographic overtones
The Beatles’ ‘Hey Jude’ was almost shelved as a single thanks to its “pornographic” vinyl cover.
That’s according to details in a newly discovered letter written by a Capitol Records executive to Apple Records.
Capitol Records’ president Stan Gortikov had warned the Beatles’ imprint not to release the record because its vinyl logo – the profile of a sliced apple – resembled a vagina. Gortikov was worried that traders would not want to stock the single.
As The Independent reports, Gortikov wrote in a letter dated 28 August 1968: “Here’s a wild and unanticipated problem to brighten up your day I just received a call from a very large and influential rack jobber in the western United States.
“He opened the conversation by saying, ‘Are you guys serious? Do you know what you’re doing? Do you really intend to sell products bearing the new Apple label?’”
Source: Charlotte Krol/nme.com
