Beatles News
Ay-up – now, here’s a familiar face!
Fifty years ago this week, Beatles singer Paul McCartney was pictured at the launch of the February 1968 Leicester Arts Festival – a real coup for the city.
More curious though is how he came to be involved.
An explanation was provided by reader Lesley Hale, neé Bushell, undergraduate student at the University of Leicester at the time, who provided an insight into the organisation of the festival that year.
“Leicester Arts Festival was an annual event of huge ambition, running for two weeks in February.
“It was a town-gown affair, overseen by a committee of arts sector people from the town, city council and all the colleges.
Source: leicestermercury.co.uk
I was incredibly disappointed to read a recent column for the Arts section titled “The Beatles are Overrated.” As a diehard Beatles fan, I tend to get very passionate about the subject. When people tell me they simply aren’t fans of the Beatles’ music, I (usually) manage to hold back explaining why everyone should be a Beatles fan. But overrated? It’s impossible to remain silent on that. The Beatles are not overrated. Not by a long shot.
I will ignore the columnist’s most developed argument—that Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr as individuals are not as talented as other individual artists—because I don’t think that argument correlates to the “overrated” question.
Source: bcheights.com
Of all the crazy stories that exist in any industry this one about George Harrison and Eric Clapton engaging in a guitar duel over George Harrison’s wife is something for the history books. Harrison and Boyd were married when Clapton fell in love with Boyd. He’d made a few passes at her before but he’d always been rebuffed for some reason. However, one night, after Harrison and Boyd had already been married for a bit, Boyd with with Clapton to listen to his music and was smitten by his lyrics. Layla was written by Clapton thanks to her inspiration it’s said and she was absolutely starstruck. After finding them hanging out together Harrison was floored when Clapton admitted that he was in love with Boyd. After asking her just who she was going to go with, Boyd finally went home with Harrison.
Source: tvovermind.com
DJ David had both Michael Jackson and George Harrison together in the same room
"But as this photograph shows, it’s the only time they were together on my Radio 1 show.
It was taken at Broadcasting House in summer 1979 on my Friday evening programme, Roundtable – which remains my favourite show to present in 50 years of broadcasting.
The show involved premier artistes talking about other people’s music, reviewing the latest singles and telling us what they were up to.
Both Michael and George were happy the other was going to appear and you can see by their body language – with Michael listening closely to what George is saying – that they were at home in each other’s company.
Source: Tony Padman/express.co.uk
The Beatles’ recordings are arguably the most dissected pop songs of all time. The studios they were recorded in, the instruments used, and the signal chain from the microphones all the way to the mixing desk above EMI’s Abbey Road Studio 2, where the Beatles did the bulk of their recording, have all been analyzed and written about to the nth degree. The microphones the Beatles used for their vocals were typically Neumann U-47 and U-48 vacuum tube microphones built in the 1950s, which their producer George Martin has written were his favorite microphones.
Source: By Ed Driscoll /pjmedia.com
Boy bands and reality TV really bug me. I mean really.
Not that I have anything against the performers themselves, mind you, just that, to me, they represent everything wrong with the entertainment business.
Rather than being organic emergences of musical talent or intriguing personalities, they’re most often just attempts by executives to copycat already successful (not to mention shallow) pop culture trends.
That premise brought me to a serious question: Are the Beatles — the biggest boy band and reality stars — any good?
Yes, like every one of my generation (X or Y or whatever) with access to TV and movies, I’ve been exposed to decades of mainstream baby boomer devotion to the four lads from Liverpool. Many boomers can recite the Beatles timeline — their uproarious debut on Ed Sullivan, John Lennon’s move toward philosophy and existentialism, their breakup and the heartbreak that came with his death dashing any hopes of a reunion.
Source: William Lee/chicagotribune.com
BEATLESRADIO.COM doesn't think so.....
It seems as though the world is made up of two types of people: those who worship The Beatles and those who don’t. I fall into the latter category. I was raised on the records of the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac, and my walls are covered with Rolling Stones records and Bob Dylan posters—I am no stranger to the colorful world of classic rock. Despite my periodic attempts to understand the universal appeal of The Beatles, I always come to the same conclusion: The Beatles are overrated. I am not saying I hate The Beatles or that they suck, so save your eyerolls for another one of my pretentious ramblings. I am simply asserting the band’s “Strawberry Fields” may not be as ripe as everyone says they are.
Source: bcheights.com
Most rock and pop stars will tell you that they've got a pre-show ritual.
But Sir Paul McCartney 's is probably one of the strangest ones around.
The Beatles star may fancy himself as a bit of a quizmaster, as he's admitted that he loves tuning in to episodes of Family Fortunes before he takes to the stage.
The revelation came about when the star was asked by a fan to name his favourite American TV shows of all time.
Sir Paul said: "Well, you know it depends what genre. I mean, if it's a series then I liked Breaking Bad a lot. And then game shows? I like Family Fortunes!.
Source: Vicki Newman/mirror.co.uk
The new feature film documentary The Beatles in India, diretced by two time Emmy award winning producer-director Paul Saltzman, is set to be released worldwide in Autumn 2018.
In 1968, with the eyes of the world upon them, The Beatles travelled to Rishikesh, India, to study Transcendental Meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in a remote ashram on the banks of the sacred river Ganges. Those few short weeks became one of the most prolific and creative periods of their lives.
Also present at the ashram was a young Canadian filmmaker named Paul Saltzman, there to heal a recently broken heart while seeking his own path to understanding and enlightenment. In the informal and relaxed atmosphere, he captured some of the most famous and intimate photographic portraits of The Beatles ever taken.
Source: Gary Collinson/flickeringmyth.com
A bizarre, head-shaker moment of realization occurs less than two minutes into the 20-plus-minute film, during our first look at the passersby on the street, five stories below: Some of them are actually passing by.
Across the street from the curmudgeonly pedestrians, on the roof of The Beatles’ Apple Corps headquarters at 3 Savile Row in London, the band is performing what will turn out to be its final public concert. They could easily have filled any stadium—any space at all, really—in the world, but there they are, the four of them in the flesh, the one and only actual Beatles, on Jan. 30, 1969, playing for free for the benefit of anyone in the neighborhood who cares to stop and listen.
And yet some people are moving on. They take a brief look to see what the racket is, some make sour faces indicating mild annoyance, and then they continue on their way back to work. Can’t miss that marketing meeting! The Beatles performing an impromptu 42-minute live gig? New songs? John, Paul, George and Ringo right over there?
Source: Best Classic Bands Staff
