Beatles News
It is hard to think about Lukas Nelson and Dhani Harrison, successful artists in their own right, without thinking about their very famous fathers, Willie and George. The two young men, friends with one another, openly embrace their fathers’ legacies. Each will perform this Saturday at BottleRock.
If you listen to this band’s self-titled 2017 debut album, the variety is striking – from plantive country ballads starkly evoking Willie Nelson to R&B to honky-tonk to gospel to acoustic folk music to rock ‘n’ roll and more. “I grew up with a hodge-podge of different influences,” Lukas said, “and when I’m writing, I’m never trying to restrict myself.
“Whatever music is playing in my head, I have to put it down. I did 39 tracks that we had mastered. We just strategically chose what we thought was a great first album and we left out some really great songs so that we’d have material to follow up with. We just picked it song by song, what was the best song and we didn’t really think about genre so much. That’s kind of how we work.”
Source: David Kerns/napavalleyregister.com
Fifty years after The Beatles' psychedelic animated movie classic, Yellow Submarine, hit theaters, Titan Comics is prepping a graphic novel take on the trippy adventure. In this Apple-approved version, Simpsons comics artist Bill Morrison re-tells the story of the cheerful, music-loving underwater world Pepperland's invasion by the marauding, music-hating Blue Meanies, who turn the citizens into statues by shooting arrows that drop green apples on their heads while imprisoning Pepperland's guardians, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, in a soundproof globe.
Just before he's captured, Pepperland's Lord Mayor sends Old Fred off in the Yellow Submarine to get help in Liverpool, where he corrals Ringo and his pals, John, George and Paul, to travel back and battle the Meanies using love and music.
Source: Gil Kaufman/billboard.com
In the earliest days of The Beatles, the fact that John Lennon and Paul McCartney began composing their own material as opposed to using songs provided by other songwriters was highly unusual. In fact, at the time — the early 1960s — it simply wasn't done. Undoubtedly in the beginning it was probably seen more as an oddity rather than an indication of the duo ultimately being credited as one of the great songwriting teams of all time.
"It wasn't the norm," Bill Harry, editor of Liverpool's Mersey Beat, the first and most recognized newspaper devoted to the local music scene, and lifelong friend of The Beatles, explains in an exclusive interview. "In America you have the Brill Building and things like that, with professional songwriters like Carole King and different people. That was the situation. The songwriters wrote the songs and the artists were given songs by the songwriters. It was similar in Britain with the A&R men. For instance, [producer] George Martin virtually insisted that The Beatles do 'How Do You Do It' by Mitch Murray for their first single, and they eventually had to talk him out of it. He finally agreed. When they first said they wanted to do their original numbers, he said, 'When you do a number as good as this, I'll let you record your own stuff.'
Source: By Ed Gross/closerweekly.com
The debate has been raging for decades, and it will never die. The two iconic British invaders are inextricably linked in history, influencing and rivaling each other in near equal measure. The Beatles may be the most celebrated rock band ever, but the Stones are the “Greatest Rock ‘n Roll Band in the World.” It’s like a battle of champions in sports, but without any rules or a scoreboard. So let’s approach this as if it were a sports series—an old-school, best-of-five, winner take all.
What are the categories to represent the games in this series? Using some of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s criteria—honorees must have “demonstrat[ed] unquestionable musical excellence and talent” and “had a significant impact on the development, evolution and preservation of rock & roll”—and some other factors that help quantify greatness, we came up with the following:
Innovation: Pioneering achievements that paved the way for others to follow. Doors the band opened that perhaps otherwise would have remained closed.
Inspiration: The number and quality of the groups that are deemed by music historians and critics to have built their sonic landscape upon their foundation. This of course is highly subjective, so for a neutral arbiter we turned to the internet music database AllMusic.com, whose editors determine for every recording artist the other artists or groups they “had a direct musical influence on, or were an inspiration to.”
Source: pastemagazine.com
A daft sketch about a fictional Scot created by a teenage John Lennon has gone on show in his home city of Liverpool.
The Beatle’s widow Yoko Ono loaned many treasured items to a new exhibition entitled Double Fantasy – John and Yoko.
Featured in the display at the Museum of Liverpool until next April is the “Daily Hool (Scotch edition)” made in 1957, when Lennon was 16. He creates Fungus Mucdungheap, dressed in a “drainpipe kilt”. Lennon spent happy holidays as a boy in Edinburgh and Durness in Sutherland
His handwritten newspaper cost “1 haggis” and he describes Fungus as “the son of a bagpipe who invented the haggae (plural)”.
Lennon’s readers are informed that “some Scotchmen live in caves” and “walk on their hands to save their shoes – not that they’re mean”. It finishes by saying: “Some Scotchmen have tartan hair instead of a kilt, silly n*****s,” borrowing a racist word in wider use at the time.
Source: john-lennon.com
In the decades since the Beatles’ 1970 breakup, the group’s rise and fall has been told as a myth. It’s also been told via children’s story, salacious gossip, dry history, detailed diaries, technical manuals, cartoons, and graphic novels. There are volumes dedicated to their recording equipment, encyclopedias chronicling all of the music and film the group has yet to release, collections of the photos from before they were stars—basically, if you can think of an idea related to John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, it’s been published. This constant trickle of books can overwhelm even steadfast Beatlemaniacs, but the greatness of the music has also drawn out greatness within authors. The best books about the Beatles rank among the best pop culture writing—and criticism—ever.
Source: Stephen Thomas ErlewineContributor/pitchfork.com
In honor of the 50th anniversary of the classic animated Beatles film Yellow Submarine , an authorized graphic-novel adaption of the movie will be published on August 28 by Titan Comics.
You can get a preview of the colorful book by checking out a new video trailer that's been posted on the company's YouTube channel . The clip features animated scenes from various parts of the comic, along with text that reads, "Join John , Paul , George and Ringo on a nautical adventure as they battle to free Pepperland from the music-hating Blue Meanies."
The novel was adapted and illustrated by Bill Morrison , who's the current editor of MAD magazine and also has served as an illustrator for The Simpsons comics.
Judging by the trailer, the book's illustrations faithfully recreate the dazzling, psychedelic imagery featured in the film, which premiered in July of 1968.
Source: Midwest Communications Inc./wabx.net
Historic guitars that belonged to The Band 's Robbie Robertson and the late George Harrison both sold at a New York City memorabilia auction over the weekend for more than $400,000.
Robertson's 1965 Fender Telecaster , which Bob Dylan played frequently during his 1966 "going electric" tour, fetched $490,000 on Saturday at the "Music Icons" sale organized by Julien's Auctions and hosted by the Hard Rock Café. The guitar also was used by Dylan and Robertson at various famous recording sessions and was played by Robbie at Woodstock and other historic concerts.
Meanwhile, a Hofner Club 40 model guitar that belonged to Harrison from 1959 to 1966, and was the first electric guitar that he ever owned, went for $430,000 after being estimated to sell for between $200,000 and $300,000.
Source: Midwest Communications Inc./wabx.net
Rob Sheffield's book Dreaming the Beatles: The Love Story of One Band and the Whole World is a celebration of the band, from the longtime Rolling Stone columnist. It tells the weird saga of how four lads from Liverpool became the world's biggest pop group, then broke up – yet somehow just kept getting bigger. Dreaming the Beatles, out in paperback on June 19th, follows the ballad of John, Paul, George and Ringo, from their Sixties peaks to their afterlife as a cultural obsession. In this section, Sheffield explores one of the Beatles' unheard treasures – the May 1968 Esher demos they recorded at George Harrison's pad, preparing for the White Album, not suspecting their friendship was about to turn upside down.
Source: Rob Sheffield/rollingstone.com
Beatlemaniacs are in for a treat … in the form of rare photographs.
As the story goes, one fine summer day back in July 1968, British photographer Tom Murray photographed Paul, John, George, and Ringo throughout the streets of London. The shoot took place quite literally on the run, so as to avoid screaming Beatles fans in hot pursuit. This frenzied dash around the city was the inspiration for the collection of images: “The Mad Day: Summer of ’68.” These images would prove to be the final publicity shoot for the Fab Four together (they broke up in 1970), and are often hailed the most significant color photos of the band.
Here’s where it gets interesting.
Source: Holly/boweryboogie.com
