Beatles News
The Beatles haven’t been together as a quartet for decades, but they still manage to remain among the most popular and successful musical acts in the world. The smash singles and albums they released during their years together—and even afterward—are still being consumed in huge numbers worldwide. The boundary-breaking outfit doubles up on one chart in their home country this week as a short collection makes its return.
On this week’s Official Physical Singles tally, the U.K.’s ranking of the bestselling songs on physical formats (usually CD or vinyl), The Beatles make a notable appearance. The band increases their total number of current hits, with one effort reappearing while another, which was already performing well, rises even higher.
“From Us to You - 2 March 1964” is back on the Official Physical Singles chart this week. The set—which is technically a short EP, but which is counted as a single—reappears at No. 58 on the list.
The EP has now spent two months on the physical sales tally. “From Us to You - 2 March 1964” is The Beatles’ most recent arrival on the chart, as it only debuted in August. So far, it has risen as high as No. 12, nearly becoming another top 10 smash for the group.
As that several-song “single” mounts a comeback, another recent release from the Grammy winners is soaring. “Now and Then” shoots from No. 33 to No. 21 on the Official Physical Singles chart this week.
That track marked the first truly new single from The Beatles in decades when it dropped in late 2023. The song, completed with the help of artificial intelligence—much to the confusion and anger of some longtime fans—easily hit No. 1 and is nearing a full year on the tally.
Source: Hugh McIntyre/forbes.com
"I asked George to turn it down a little. He looked at me and said: You don't talk to a Beatle like that": How The Beatles made Abbey Road, told by those who were there
In what was unquestionably one of the lowest of the low points in their downward trajectory, The Beatles had recorded their warts’n’all Let It Be documentary and its musical soundtrack during January 1969. The cuddly mop-tops had been disintegrating since the White Album sessions in 1968, and the experience of making Let It Be had been agonising for all concerned.
Tony Bramwell, their roadie from the Liverpool days and later an Apple director, recalls: “Things started going wrong at the time of the White Album. Everything changed then. It became that Paul was doing lots and the others weren’t doing much more than being session men.”
By the time of the Let It Be sessions, John Lennon’s heroin addiction was at its worst, and the others simply could not cope with it. “We were disappointed that he was getting into heroin because we didn’t really know how we could help him,” Paul McCartney explained to Barry Miles in his book Many Years From Now. “We just hoped it wouldn’t go too far.”
Source: Johnny Black/loudersound.com
Ringo Starr has come down with a cold, and he and his his All Starr Band have been forced to cancel the last two remaining shows of their tour.
The group was scheduled to perform at Philadelphia’s TD Pavilion at The Mann on Tuesday (Sept. 24) and at NYC’s Radio City Music Hall on Wednesday (Sept. 25), however, “after consulting a doctor [Starr] was advised to cancel these two remaining shows and get rest,” per a press release.
Fans are encouraged to contact their ticket point of purchase for refunds. “As always, Ringo and the All Starrs send peace and love to their fans and hope to see them soon,” the statement concludes.
“We love it. I know the audience loves me. And I love them,” the 84-year-old Beatles star previously told Billboard of touring. “And the band has only one rule: We’re not there to be miserable. And I’ll support you to the best of my ability and I expect the same from you. We do it for each other.”
Starr dropped his latest four-track EP, Rewind Forward, back in October 2023. “It’s all about going forward. It’s just the fact that sometimes we all get stuck and have to fight your way out,” he said of the project. “Oh, I’ve been stuck many times!”
Source: billboard.com
After facing 25,000 people in Toronto, a newly emboldened Lennon returned to London determined to finally bury the Beatles once and for all. In August of 1966, the Beatles had just arrived in Toronto for a pair of appearances at Maple Leaf Gardens that, unbeknownst to the world, would be among their last. Prior to the shows, in a press conference at the arena’s Hot Stove Lounge, a reporter asked John Lennon if the band — who had failed to sell out the 16,00-seat venue — would ever split up.
“We obviously are not going to go around holding hands forever,” he replied, eliciting laughter from the assembled press.
Lennon added, more seriously, “we’ve got to split up or progress … it might happen. It’s quite possible.”
The Toronto reporters could not have known, but by the end of the decade, their budding metropolis would soon become the catalyst for the destruction of the greatest band of all time.
In September, 1969, a very different John Lennon stepped into the arrivals lounge at Toronto International Airport. The 28-year-old had traded his moptop for long hair and a bushy beard, he had married a Japanese artist seven years his senior and the Beatles were now barely on speaking terms.
Lennon himself had grown particularly disillusioned with the Fab Four. He had been showing up to recording sessions blasted on drugs, he had lambasted Paul McCartney’s contributions to the album Abbey Road as “granny music” and he had begun to openly resent the Beatles’ entire rise to fame as a colossal sellout.
Source: kingstonthisweek.com
If the earliest days of Beatlemania were the puppy love, head-over-heels phase of the Fab Four’s relationship with one another, then John Lennon considers this later Beatles album as “the mature part” of the band’s bond. Ironically, the album is also one of the Beatles’ most whimsical and impersonal.
Lennon’s opinion on this iconic album fluctuated in the years following its release. Depending on his mood, the day, or otherwise, the late musician would lament the record’s pitfalls or boast its many strengths and lasting influence.
This multifaceted perspective, we suppose, is not all that different from how someone might treat someone with whom they’ve been in a relationship for a long time.
In All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, David Sheff spoke to the late ex-Beatle and his wife about nearly every aspect of Lennon’s time in the Fab Four. From individual songs to overarching themes of their career, Lennon revealed his true thoughts about his band’s legacy, even likening its many phases to a romantic relationship.
As the Beatles’ career continued to evolve from their early Beatlemania days, Lennon recalled, “We were different; we were older; we knew each other on all kinds of levels that we didn’t when we were teenagers. The early stuff—the “Hard Day’s Night” period, I call it—was the sexual equivalent of the beginning hysteria of a relationship. And the “Sgt. Pepper-Abbey Road” period was the mature part of the relationship.”
With its heavy use of theatrics and experimentation, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band certainly marked a distinct change in the Beatles’ trajectory. In a different interview, Lennon said this transition was non-negotiable for the band’s success.
Source: Melanie Davis/americansongwriter.com
Paul McCartney is ready to get back, again, with Saturday’s one-night-only screenings of the rarely-seen 1974 documentary “Paul McCartney & Wings: One Hand Clapping.” It will screen internationally at movie theaters, including five in San Diego County, one in in Tijuana and one in Murrieta. (The list of theaters appears later in this article.)
The now 50-year-old film has never been shown in theaters or televised. Some of the songs recorded for the film were included as part of McCartney’s archival “Band on the Run” box set release in 2010, while a few other songs appeared in subsequent deluxe reissues of other McCartney albums in 2011 and 2014.
Not coincidentally, “One Hand Clapping” was made as something of a victory lap following the 1973 release of the chart-topping “Band on the Run.” That was the third album McCartney and Wings made together in the 1970s, following the implosion of his previous band, The Beatles.
The film was shot on videotape in August 1974 at Abbey Road, the same London studio where The Beatles recorded the majority of their albums. Its belated unveiling now, in upgraded form, follows the June release of the “One Hand Clapping” live double-album. Sixteen of the selections on this 32-song, live-in-the-studio album were never previously released, at least not officially (bootlegs are another matter).
The film and album feature live-in-the-studio versions of such McCartney and Wings’ favorites as “Jet,” “Live and Let Die,” “Band on the Run,” “Junior’s Farm” and “Hi Hi Hi.” The sound has been remastered by an audio team that includes Giles Martin, the son of longtime Beatles’ producer George Martin.
Source: George Varga/sandiegouniontribune.com
Following this summer’s ‘Mind Games Ultimate Collection’ boxset, the book features handwritten lyrics, letters, previously unseen photography, and artworks by Lennon and Yoko Ono from the period.
A definitive book exploring the writing, recording, and release of John Lennon’s groundbreaking solo record Mind Games is on its way. Out September 24, the book features handwritten lyrics, letters, artworks by Lennon and Yoko Ono, and previously unseen photography alongside their firsthand commentary about the album. Also included are contributions from the musicians, friends, engineers, and key figures involved in the making of Lennon’s landmark 1973 album.
The book’s publication follows this summer’s Mind Games – The Ultimate Collection. The collection’s six unique listening experiences include the sonically upgraded Ultimate Mixes to the Elements Mixes, which highlight instrumentation buried in the original mix, to the Raw Studio Mixes, the recording laid to tape without vocal effects, tape delays, or reverb. In October, Sean Ono Lennon will release Mind Games – The Meditation Mixes, nine relaxing reworkings of the title track that were originally shared via the app Lumenate.
Mind Games captures a transformative moment for the Lennons. After moving to New York City in 1971, Lennon’s anti-Vietnam War activism drew the ire of the Nixon administration, who enlisted the FBI to place the young musician under surveillance. The overtly political messaging on 1972’s Sometime in New York City didn’t help matters. Meanwhile, Lennon and Ono were experiencing marital problems, undoubtedly compounded by an ongoing deportation order.
All of this was in the background as a 33-year-old Lennon embarked on recording Mind Games, his first self-produced album. The sessions took place at the Record Plant in New York City over July and August 1973 and featured the jokingly named Plastic U.F.Ono Band, which included drummer Jim Keltner, guitarist David Spinozza, pianist Ken Ascher, pedal-steel player ‘Sneaky’ Pete Kleinow, saxophonist Michael Brecker, drummer Rick Marotta, bassist Gordon Edwards, and backing vocalists Something Different.
Source: Sam Armstrong/udiscovermusic.com
According to insiders, the new documentary will mark the 60th anniversary of the Fab Four breaking America. The Beatles' assault on the United States is reportedly set to become the subject of a new Apple TV+ documentary.
1964 will chart the year the Fab Four made their first trip to the US, which saw Beatlemania sweeping across the country and over 70 million people tuning in to watch their debut performance on The Ed Sullivan Show. According to The Sun, the documentary will be entitled 1969 and will chart band's phenomenal debut in the states, which prompted The British Invasion.
An insider said: "The Beatles made history when they cracked America in February 1964. "Apple TV+ have a documentary coming out which looks back at their rise — and how the band paved the way for acts like the Rolling Stones when it came to making it big in America."
The went on: "Beatlemania was crazy in the UK, but the Americans gave our fans a run for their money.
"People will remember the hysteria that took over the US when The Beatles arrived, and the incredible scenes where thousands of teenagers turned up to see them wherever they went. "It was a moment in music history that has been repackaged and resold, and the result is genuinely brilliant."
It was previously announced that Sam Mendes would be at the helm of a landmark project, which would delve into the life story of all four members of The Beatles with four separate films.
“I’m honoured to be telling the story of the greatest rock band of all time, and excited to challenge the notion of what constitutes a trip to the movies,” said Sam Mendes of the announcement back in February.
Source: Jenny Mensah/radiox.co.uk
If one is a Beatles historian and fanatic, one knows that John Lennon grew up without a mother or father. Growing up Lennon was raised by his aunt and uncle, however, heartbreak didn’t stop there as his uncle died while raising him. It was all this heartbreak and tragedy that seemingly left a hole in Lennon. That hole was filled with literature, poetry, stories, and most importantly, music.
When creating art, experiences such as Lennon’s are nearly impossible to separate from the finished product. That being so, there were hoards of Beatles’ songs that reportedly included Lennon’s trauma and hardship. Although, one of the most notable was their 1965 hit, “Help.”
In an interview on The Howard Stern Show, Howard Stern brought up the tribulations Lennon underwent in his childhood. McCartney attested to this fact by acknowledging that his father had left him when he was only three and that “It was a huge pain for John growing up.” McCartney also recollected how Lennon felt when his uncle died after he lived with them. According to McCartney, Lennon said, “I could be a jinx against the male line.”
Source: Peter Burditt/americansongwriter.com
Starr and the Band perform, this week, starting in Medford, Mass. and ending up in NYC on Sept. 25, with a total of 5 concerts. This concert was at Mohegan Sun Arena.
