Beatles News
This giving season, Sir Ringo Starr is asking UNICEF supporters to join him in supporting the George Harrison Fund for UNICEF.
As little as a $10 donation can make a big difference to children in need. To show your support — and help Ringo spread positivity and honor George’s memory — donate now, then add the Ringo and Me Facebook frame to your Facebook profile picture — and tag your friends!
Find out more here.
In 1971, George Harrison organized the Concerts for Bangladesh because his friend Ravi Shankar asked him for help. Today, the George Harrison Fund for UNICEF provides lifesaving assistance to children caught in humanitarian emergencies around the world.
Ringo will be honored with the Humanitarian Award from the George Harrison Fund for UNICEF on November 27, 2019 at their annual Snowflake Ball in New York City.
Source: Look To The Stars
Rock legend Paul McCartney has agreed to do an Irish gig - the first in nearly 10 years.
The former Beatles musician will be raising money for the homeless through an exclusive concert at Vicar Street in Dublin.
Macca was inspired by recent unveiling of a plaque that commemorated the two concerts The Beatles played in the Adelphi Cinema on Middle Abbey Street on November 7, 1963.
Harry Crosbie, the owner of Vicar Street, said: “I sent him a photo of the plaque and I got an answer back saying he was absolutely delighted.”
Mr Crosbie added that Paul often does “guerilla gigs” and added: “He came back to me and said that Vicar Street is top of the list for the next one.”
Instead of selling tickets, guests will be asked for donations and all proceeds from the gig will be used to help the homeless.
No date has been for the gig yet, but Mr Crosbie said that he could get a call from the musician at any moment “because that’s the way he works”.
Source: Aakanksha Surve/irishmirror.ie
The iconic musician is releasing a series of previously unpublished photos in his new coffee table book, Another Day In the Life.
Another Day In the Life, available for pre-order from Genesis Books, is a quirky assortment of photos snapped by Starr, including candid views of his everyday life, as well as archival shots of Paul McCartney and other legends from his Beatles days.
“I love taking photos of random things, and seeing how they all fit together. Whether it is at home or on the road, certain things catch my eye – and when I see something that interests me, that’s the emotion of it, and I want to capture it. I am a photographer as well as a musician,” Starr said in a statement about the new book. “I love working with Genesis and had so much fun putting together this collection of images: photos taken by me and a few picked up along the way. I hope you enjoy it too.”
Source: Lindsay Lowe/parade.com
British comedy legend Eric Idle has joined Chris Smith in studio, and he’s come armed with some extraordinary tales.
The Monty Python co-founder is behind some of the world’s most famous sketches.
His new “sortabiography” entitled Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, gives us a peek behind the curtains of his remarkable life.
In a broad interview with Chris Smith, Mr Idle touches on everything from his difficult upbringing to jamming with the Rolling Stones.
He’s also detailed his close relationship with The Beatles guitarist George Harrison and reveals the now iconic Life of Brian wouldn’t have gone ahead if it weren’t for George.
“He mortgaged his house for $4.5 million and put it all for the budget of Life of Brian.
“Otherwise it would never have been made, still.”
Source:
Chris Smith
They hated each other. The version of the Beatles who got together to record the Let It Be album in 1969 was, from a chemistry standpoint, the very worst version of the Beatles. Ringo Starr had already quit the band for two weeks, and his bandmates had to track him down and convince him to return. During the sessions, George Harrison quit, too. He stormed out for five days and, when he came back, he demanded that the band abandon the album’s whole central idea.
The idea belonged to Paul McCartney. The Beatles had quit touring a few years earlier, and McCartney, fully understanding that the band was breaking apart, wanted to try out a back-to-the-roots move. It was an ambitious idea: He wanted the band to write a bunch of songs, rehearse them, and then play them live in front of an audience for the first time. They would release a whole album of new songs, recorded live, and they’d put the performance on film, too, so they could make a movie or a TV special out of it.
Source: Tom Breihan/stereogum.com
After wowing the local scene in his native Montenegro and winning awards in competitions across Europe, guitar virtuoso Milos Karadaglic received a scholarship to study at London’s prestigious Royal Academy of Music. It was there, a decade ago, that he truly discovered the compositions of messieurs John Lennon and Paul McCartney and a quartet called The Beatles.
Karadaglic had never really paid attention to the Fab Four, other than passively listening as they wafted through the radio in his former home city of Podgorica. So, when tasked at the conservatory with studying the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu’s solo guitar arrangement of the 1965 ballad Yesterday, he approached it with fresh ears. “It is a bit of a paradox,” he admits with a laugh.
“Because the last place you think you will discover The Beatles is at the Royal Academy of Music in London, but that was another one of those moments that made me think how incredibly universal music is. How, no matter what you play, and what you want to do, you can make it sound good on the guitar,” he says.
Source: thenational.ae
Wrapping a 50-day experiment in looking for the Beatles in my life
As we sat down for the evening session of Thanksgiving dining in rural Illinois, one of my cousins asked, “Did you write anything about the 50th anniversary of ‘The White Album’?”
Just like that, I had my Beatles reference for the day and the conclusion to a 50-day experiment in scouting Fab Four allusions in my life.
Thursday marked the 50th anniversary of the release of the Beatles’ self-titled double album, a sprawling and unpredictable collection of songs that arrived in stores exactly five years after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr burst into U.S. consciousness, of course, in early 1964 to offer a measure of joy to a nation mourning the death of JFK.
“A Hard Day’s Night" on the big screen, the Shea Stadium concert, “Yesterday” single, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” album, retreat in India, animated “Yellow Submarine” movie, rooftop performance and many more moments added up to an unrivaled pop-culture presence in the 1960s.
But that was a long time ago.
Source: David Lindquist, Indianapolis Star/indystar.com
An unlikely setting for songwriting, a meditation retreat at an ashram in Rishikesh, India proved one of the most creative places for the Beatles. Away from pressures of superstardom, from February to April 1968 they composed 40 songs while studying with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of transcendental meditation. While in Rishikesh, Donovan suggested, because of their immense fame, the Beatles’ next album could be plain white and nameless. Thus The Beatles (aka the White Album) was born.
I spent 20 years living with and working for Maharishi in his ashrams all over the world, including his ashram in Rishikesh. I was very lucky to get a unique insight into how Maharishi and the events that happened in the ashram influenced and inspired The Beatles. So, on the 50th anniversary of The White Album’s release, what are the hidden meanings behind the songs written under Maharishi’s influence?
Mia Farrow’s sister “Dear Prudence” Farrow had abused drugs and alcohol as a teenager. While in Rishikesh, she spent nearly all her time in meditation. Trying to lure her out of her room, John Lennon and George Harrison burst through her door, singing Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band and Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da. But she just wanted them to disappear.
Source: irishtimes.com
Five years ago I stood in a room containing nothing but White Albums. For his installation We Buy White Albums, the Californian artist Rutherford Chang had filled a small gallery in Manhattan with 693 vinyl copies of the ninth Beatles album, some on the walls, some in racks.
The sleeve, designed by Pop artist Richard Hamilton, is famously blank but every one of these copies was faded, stained, torn, illustrated, signed or otherwise altered in some unique way, whether by a human hand or simply by the passing of time. As I studied them, I listened to multiple copies of side one playing simultaneously and slowly drifting out of sync, rendering these exceptionally famous songs eerie and strange.
Whether or not you consider it the best Beatles album (I do), it’s certainly the most Beatles album
There’s something about The White Album that invites listeners to mess around with it. Joan Didion stole its title for her 1979 essay collection, an elegy for the dreams of 1960s California. The producer Danger Mouse chopped it to pieces and recombined the fragments with vocals from Jay-Z’s The Black Album to create his 2004 mash-up The Grey Album. The jam band Phish covered all 30 songs on stage on Halloween night, 1994. Charles Manson, notoriously, had his own theories. Even the title has been rewritten: The Beatles called it The Beatles but their fans had other ideas.
Source: Dorian Lynskey/bbc.com
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Beatles landmark release ‘The White Album’. The 30-track double album that upended the music world has returned to the charts once again thanks to the remastering by Giles Martin, son of the legendary Beatles’ producer George Martin.
With new mixes in stereo and 5.1 surround sound, and loads of previously unreleased extras, fans are getting to hear the Fab Four in a whole new light, including drummer Ringo Starr on a blistering 13-minute long ‘Helter Skelter’.
“It’s always been one of my favourite albums,” Ringo tells uDiscover Music. “There’s a lot of stuff that nobody’s ever heard and George’s house sessions. But the actual remastering (because of the technology we have today) is much clearer, and the drums are a little higher, so I love it.”
But Ringo has even more to celebrate. The industrious artist has a new book on the way, a collection of photos from his life and travels titled Another Day In The Life, set for release in April 2019. Spanning from his early Beatles days to his current world tours, Starr has always seen life through a lens:
“Wherever I am, I always take pictures and I’m nearly ready for Another, Another Day In The Life,” he jokes.
Source: Laura Stavropoulos/udiscovermusic.com
Beatles Postcard Card: The Beatles "Love Album" (Standard) 