Beatles News
Women practice yoga in front of Beatles-themed displays at the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Rishikesh, northern India, on Feb. 25, 2018. The area, which marks the 50th year of the British rock band's stay, has attracted many fans from around the world.
In February 1968, the Beatles embarked on their famous discovery of India to study transcendental meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Now 50 years later India is rediscovering the Beatles — or at least the tourism potential of the world’s most famous rock band seeking salvation in the country.
A yoga festival in Rishikesh is having a Beatles special this month. A tribute band from England, the Fab Four, is supposed to perform there. There are plans for a Beatles Museum and what’s left of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram, a 14-acre compound where the Beatles stayed, has been spruced up for tourists.
Source: pri.org
It didn’t work out the way they thought it would. They left sooner than they intended. The parting was ugly. They did not learn the secret to happiness. But their brief sojourn in India changed the Beatles in ways they never expected.
“I think it might have just sort of saved their sanity,” says Rock biographer Philip Norman. Norman spoke recently at the Jaipur Literature Festival about the Beatles and India with Ajoy Bose, the author of the just-released book Across the Universe: The Beatles in India.
50 years after that famous trip, we can look back at it with rose-tinted glasses. After all, nostalgia can be good for the tourism business. “We have earmarked the last three days of the [International Yoga] Festival to celebrate 50 years of the Beatles' visit to Rishikesh,” says Uttarkhand Tourism Minister Satpal Maharaj. In fact, the 14-acre Chaurasi Kutia Ashram where they stayed had fallen into disrepair, the buildings crumbling, covered in graffiti, largely ignored by the local government after Maharishi Mahesh Yogi left. “At the last minute, they are waking up to the possibility,” says Ajoy Bose, “Now I am hearing there will be a museum.” A California-based tribute band, the Fab Four, will play in Rishikesh on 6 March as part of the special Beatles commemoration.
Source: firstpost.com
As hairdresser to the Beatles in the 1960s, Leslie Cavendish was exposed to sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. However, working for Vidal Sassoon, the most famous hairdresser of the time, he was under strict instructions that the female clientele – including Jane Asher, Mary Quant and singer Shirley Bassey – were off limits. And drugs didn’t float his boat. But rock n’ roll and the Beatles were a dream come true.
In his recently-published book, The Cutting Edge: The Story of the Beatles’ Hairdresser Who Defined An Era, Cavendish (who is pictured above, strumming the Gretsch guitar John Lennon used during the recording of Paperback Writer), lifts the lid not just on Beatlemania, but also on popular culture in an era when the BBC only played “safe and proper” music by artists speaking “the Queen’s equerry”.
As he was blow-drying her hair one day in 1966, Asher turned to the 19-year-old Jewish boy from Burnt Oak – who had fallen into hairdressing after following his best friend Lawrence Falk into it, seduced by the fashionable lifestyle the salon seemed to offer – and asked: “Would you cut my boyfriend’s hair?”
Source: Alex Galbinski/jewishnews.timesofisrael.com
BROOKLYN, New York --
If you only listened to them, you might think you were listening to the Beatles themselves. But they are two twin brothers from Brooklyn, and their performances are sweet music to the ears of straphangers. Amiri and Rahiem Taylor are identical twins, born and raised in Bed-Stuy. The brothers are also featured in a viral video, that at last check had 18 million views. As children, their home was always filled with music, both jazz and classical.
But when their grandmother gave them a Christmas gift when they were about 15 years old, their musical world expanded. The teens became obsessed with the Beatles rock band video game and fell in love with the group's universal sound. Amiri and Rahiem also write and produce their own music and are half of the group Blac Rabbit, a psychedelic rock band. About three years ago, the brothers wanted to go visit their mom in Puerto Rico but didn't have enough money.
Source: Kemberly Richardson/abc13.com
I have to quibble with the “modern Schuberts” moniker [this is how I described the Beatles underneath a photo]. As gifted of tunesmiths as Paul, John & co. were, they don’t compare to Schubert or any other classical master. There is an immense gulf in the level of craftsmanship between, say Schubert’s 9th Symphony and Sgt. Pepper (especially as the craft in that album largely came from George Martin). The Beatles main schtick was introducing more diatonic, folk-influenced melodies and harmonies to the largely blues / rockabilly based popular music of the late 50’s & 60’s. But the comparison with classical music is off base. The Beatles are no more the modern Schuberts as Cole Porter is the modern Bach or Burt Bacharach is the modern Beethoven. They are all very talented musicians, but I would look to composers such as Part, Schnittke, Penderecki, post-war Stravinsky or Wuorinen (all either Catholic or Orthodox and significant composers of sacred music by the way) as my candidates for the “modern Schubert”.
Source: Dave Armstrong/patheos.com
The Sun Kings’ motto is “A Beatles Tribute as Nature Intended.” Eschewing costumes, wigs, mustaches or faked accents, the San Francisco Bay Area-based band focus on capturing the essence of the Beatles and faithfully recreating their music on stage.
On March 10, 2018 at the Downtown Theatre in Fairfield, they will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the release of “The Beatles,” the so-called White Album, by performing it live in its entirety, in record order.
The Sun Kings are Drew Harrison as John Lennon (vocals, rhythm guitar, percussion), Scott Southard as Paul McCartney (vocals, bass guitar, piano), Bruce Coe as George Harrison (lead guitar, keyboards, vocals) and Steve Scarpelli (drums, percussion, vocals).
While the real Beatles had a number of people sometimes referred to as the unofficial “5th Beatle” ranging from their producer Sir George Martin to musician Billy Preston, The Sun Kings have an actual full-time 5th Beatle, Michael Barrett as the orchestrator (keyboards, harmonica, percussion, vocals).
Source: Tony Wade/dailyrepublic.com
The award-winning ‘The Beatles Story' in Liverpool has unveiled a new special exhibition celebrating 50 years since The Beatles travelled to Rishikesh, India.
The exhibition explores the particulars of John Lennon and George Harrison's trip to Rishikesh. Photo courtesy: The Beatles Story Liverpool
The exhibition explores this key and a relatively secretive episode of the Beatles’ story with memorabilia, imagery and exclusive personal accounts from the people who were there with the band in 1968.
Quite a bit of the Beatles tryst with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, their vow to give up drugs in favour of Transcendental Meditation, heartbreaks, breakups and bursts of creativity that marked the band's quest for quietude and spirituality in Rishikesh in 1968 has remained shrouded in secrecy.
Source: Pradeep Rana/connectedtoindia.com
And if anyone would know, it would be Paul McCartney, whose words those are.
George Harrison once said that the MBE he and his fellow Fab Four bandmates were awarded in 1965 stood for Mr Brian Epstein.
Epstein was the musical entrepreneur who discovered The Beatles during a lunchtime performance in The Cavern Club in November, 1961.
He said: “I was immediately struck by their music, their beat and their sense of humour on stage. And even afterwards, when I met them, I was struck again by their personal charm and it was there that, really, it all started.”
They signed a management contract in February, 1962 — a document sold at auction in 2008 for £240,000.
But it took months of hawking the band around disinterested record labels before George Martin finally agreed to sign them to Parlophone — largely because of Brian’s conviction they would become internationally famous.
Epstein had briefly attended RADA — where his classmates included Albert Finney and Peter O’Toole — and this influenced his decision to smarten up the group, swapping their jeans and leather jackets for suits and introducing the famous synchronised bow at the end of their performances.
Source: Alan Shaw/The Sunday Post
A Stowmarket auctioneer has announced it will be putting a very valuable piece of Beatles memorabilia up for sale next month.
Bishop & Miller, one of the region’s leading independent auction and valuation firms, will welcome bids for a band card autographed by the legendary foursome, worth an estimated £1,000-£1,500.
The sale will be the key highlight of Bishop & Miller’s first Toy and Memorabilia auction on March 10, which will also feature a number of other collectable items up for grabs.
The 55-year-old band card belongs to Mike Nicholson, a retired carpenter/joiner from King’s Lynn, who bagged the autographs at a Great Yarmouth gig way back in 1963.
Mr Nicholson, then a musician himself, luckily knew the stage manager at the concert who was able to meet the band backstage.
Source: Amy Gibbons/eadt.co.uk
The year was 1968. Four hallowed visitors left the speedy life of London and reached Rishikesh, a city in India's northern state of Uttarakhand, located in the Himalayan foothills besides the holy river Ganges.
Beatlemania was in full swing then, but the Beatles themselves were grief-stricken over the sudden death of their manager and struggling to reboot their identity.
They were to learn Transcendental Meditation in the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in a quest to find some inner peace.
The spiritually inclined George Harrison and John Lennon arrived in New Delhi on Feb. 16 and took the road towards the hill city for Maharishi's ashram.
Close behind them were practical-minded Paul McCartney, who was less sure about giving up his music and fame for an illusive mystical path, and Ringo Starr, the band's good-natured drummer, carrying suitcases full of Heinz baked beans in case the ashram's food failed to satisfy his appetite.
Source: english.kyodonews.netenglish.kyodonews.net
