Beatles News
Calling the Beatles "influential" to rock and roll is an understatement. They were as essential to music as oxygen is to life. I was seven years old when John Lennon was taken from the world, forever ending any chance of a Fab Four reunion. As time marched on, seeing at least one Beatle perform live had become a "bucket list" item. Thanks to Ringo Starr, that box is finally checked.
At 78 years of age, you might think Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band would be a show that relies on nostalgia over musicianship. Rest assured, Ringo, aka Sir Richard Starkey, is still the infectiously charming performer he's been since the Beatles early days. As a drummer he's been immensely influential and inconceivably still underrated by "experts" in such matters. All of Ringo's many talents were on display as the thirteenth iteration of the All-Starr Band played a lively show at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis.
Source: criticalblast.com
Title of book and publisher: “Advertising The Beatles,” HenschelHAUS Publishing, Milwaukee
Synopsis of book (plot): A colorful and historic journey through the Fab Four’s earliest releases in Great Britain and the U.S. based on record advertisements. These ads usually ran in trade magazines for one week and then were gone forever. Compiled here for the first time in book format by Beatles enthusiast Ray Zirkle, these promotional materials show the group’s musical evolution through the years until they ultimately disbanded in the early 1970s.
Is this your first book? It’s my first published book. I also had another self-published book featuring my photography.
Why did you write the book? I originally did it for myself just to see if it might be something people would like. After showing the self-published prototype to people and getting great response I started searching out local publishers. My hunch was right judging by the response I received at the last Beatles Convention in August.
Source: journaltimes.com
Three years before writing his political anthem ‘Gimme Some Truth’, John Lennon had a stark warning for the public about politicians when he was interviewed at The National Theatre in 1968: “I think our society is run by insane people for insane objectives, and I think that’s what I sussed when I was 16 and 12, way down the line. But, I expressed it differently all through my life. It’s the same thing I’m expressing all the time, but now I can put it into that sentence that I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends. If anybody can put on paper what our government, and the American government and the Russian, Chinese, what they are actually trying to do and what they think they’re doing… I’d be very pleased to know what they think they’re doing, I think they’re all insane!”
Source: Martin Chilton/udiscovermusic.com
Paul McCartney appears set to return to San Diego for his first concert here since his rousing Petco Park show in 2014, according to a reliable source — McCartney himself.
On Thursday, the veteran solo star, Beatles co-founder and two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee wrote on his Facebook page: “San Diego! We’ve heard rumours that Paul is bringing his #FreshenUpTour to town in 2019…Get your tour laminate album bundle here! Each laminate comes with a code that could allow access to pre-sales.”
Of course, it’s more than possible McCartney, 74, has a staff member who is assigned to regularly tend to his social media posts for him. But it is more than unlikely McCartney or his management would not have known about — or approved — the San Diego “rumours” post.
Source: Connatix/fox5sandiego.com
The event, scheduled to take place at 10 a.m. ET on the steps of City Hall, will feature Starr and Ono coming together with actor Jeff Bridges, photographer Henry Diltz, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio and others to inspire "student activism" in honor of Yoko and her late husband John Lennon's famous non-violent protests promoting world peace.
The gathering, which will mark the launch of a monthlong residency in New York City for the Lennon bus, will feature speeches by student activists, a group sing-along of "Give Peace a Chance," and a variety of creative activities.
Celebrating its 21st year, the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus is a state-of-the-art mobile recording facility providing students with the chance to learn how to use audio and video gear and technology. During its New York residency, the Lennon Bus visit schools around the city, and will offer a newly devised curriculum titled Come Together encouraging students to converse and take part in creative activities focusing on topics such as peace, empathy, immigration and activism.
Source: abcnewsradioonline.com
Paul McCartney and Kanye West have been professionally linked for around four years, working together and with Rihanna, but it turns out their relationship actually stretches back a decade and has a touching origin story. McCartney tells GQ that the two were both attending the 2008 European MTV Awards in Liverpool when they broke the ice by getting deep in their feelings. McCartney recalls, “I’d just gone through my divorce [from Heather Mills], and I was kind of a little bit raw from it, and I said something to him about it, and he’d just broken up with someone [Alexis Phifer], and he just pulled out his phone and played this great little track—I don’t even remember what it’s called, but it’s one of his famous ones. So I sort of liked him, and I liked this tune. I’m not sure what he was doing there—I think he might have been hanging out with Bono.”
Source: Dee Lockett/vulture.com
Beatles' hit Hey Jude is now 50 years old.
If the legendary music producer Sir George Martin had his way, the Beatles' most successful hit single would never had been released, at least as a single.
When Paul McCartney first played the song to George Martin it was over seven minutes in duration. Martin said radio stations wouldn't play it as it was too long.
John Lennon's reply to that: "They will if it's us."
And sure, enough they did.
Hey Jude became the band's most successful single. It topped the charts around the world, staying at No 1 in the US for nine weeks and selling over five million copies.
Source: Brian Kelly/nzherald.co.nz
Mom, please stop reading this. Impressionable children of any age, cover your eyes. Sex-positive? Proceed full steam ahead. This is a tale about Paul McCartney, the Beatles, and group masturbation. It’s brought to you by GQ and a star who has reached that sublime point in his life and career where he’s less concerned with self-censure, and more concerned with reflecting, wherever that reflection takes him (See: Quincy Jones for New York magazine. See also: Quincy Jones for GQ).
As the long-rumored story goes, McCartney, John Lennon, and a few of his friends were over at Lennon’s house at some point before Beatles fame descended. “Instead of just getting roaring drunk and partying—I don’t even know if we were staying over or anything—we were all just in these chairs, and the lights were out, and somebody started masturbating, so we all did,” he told writer Chris Heath.
Source:Kenzie Bryant/Vanity Fair
Music icon and GQ cover star Paul McCartney has been writing songs for more than sixty years now, and even the world's biggest Beatles fan probably doesn't know everything about every single one of them. He sat down with GQ to discuss some of his best, most famous, and most significant works, from the bizarre, swirling interlude in "A Day in the Life," to the surprisingly controversial history behind the title of "Hey Jude." Here are a few of our favorite anecdotes.
"Yesterday"
McCartney woe up one day with the Melody of Yesterday in place, but no lyrics. As a placeholder, it was originally titled "Scrambled Eggs." This just goes to show the importance of good editing.
Source: Tom Philip,Collier Schorr/gq.com
In August, music legend Quincy Jones spent a portion of his wide-ranging interview with New York magazine’s Vulture bad-mouthing Sir Paul McCartney and the Beatles. In the interview, Jones called the Beatles “no-playing motherf—-rs” who were “the worst musicians in the world,” and seemingly reserved special ire for McCartney himself, calling him “the worst bass player I ever heard.”
Now, in an interview of his own with GQ, McCartney laughed off the comments, saying that Jones is “totally out of his tree.”
He then went on to say that Jones called him personally afterwards to both clear the air and deny ever saying the words.
In the interview, McCartney recounted the night Jones called him and said,““I didn’t really say that thing—I don’t know what happened, man. I never said that. You know I love you guys!’ I said, ‘If you had said that, you know what I would have said?
Source: Melissa Locker/time.com
