Yet Lennon's snide lyric still resonates – despite the fact that McCartney was the principal architect of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the iconic 1967 album that celebrates its 50th anniversary on June 1, 2107.
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George Harrison played a number of guitars during his years in the Beatles, from Gretsch and Rickenbacker models in the early days to his famed 1968 rosewood Fender Telecaster in the band’s final year.
One guitar that doesn’t get talked about much is the 1961 Fender Stratocaster Harrison played starting in 1965. The guitar became one of his favorites. Indeed, in the clip shown at the bottom, probably from the early Nineties, Harrison discusses his love for the Fender Strat and says he continued to use the guitar throughout his career.
As the clip begins, Harrison recalls how, in the Beatles’ early days, he had a chance to buy a Stratocaster. At the time, American-made guitars were hard to find in England. Unfortunately, before he could buy it, the Strat was purchased by the guitarist in Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, the group in which future Beatle Ringo Starr played drums.
“By the time I got there, it was gone,” Harrison recalls. “I was so disappointed. It scarred me for the rest of my life.”
At the time, he says, “I didn’t like the guitar sound I had. And it was a Vox amp and a Gretsch guitar. [But] it was early days and we were lucky to have anything.”
Eventually, both Harrison and John Lennon became owners of matching 1961 Fender Stratocasters with Sonic Blue finishes. The guitar were purchased for them in 1965 while the Beatles were recording their album Help! In the clip, Harrison says the guitars were bought during the making of Rubber Soul, but both guitars made their earliest appearances on “Ticket to Ride,” from 1965’s Help! Harrison used his Strat extensively on Rubber Soul, also from 1965, including on the track “Nowhere Man.” He continued to use the guitar for the remainder of the group’s albums.
By: Christopher Scapeletti
Source: Guitar World
The BBC has pulled the plug on a TV special celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the first worldwide simulcast, during which the Beatles premiered the son All You Need Is Love”. And the cancellation threatens a San Francisco component of the project, produced by the Antenna Television.
On June 25, the BBC was planning to air several three-minute segments from dozens of cities around the world, including London, Venice, Italy, and San Francisco. For the videos, local arts producers would create visual spectacles on the theme of love.
Chris Hardman, founder and artistic director of San Francisco’s Antenna Theater, was planning San Francisco’s contribution: a live video stream in which two planes would sky-write a heart over the Golden Gate Bridge while local choruses sang the iconic Beatles’ song from a fleet of boats on the San Francisco Bay.
“The timing,” Hardman said Monday, “was perfect, with the anniversary of the Summer of Love.”
“The last time I talked to them, the word was full steam ahead, green light,” Hardman said. “And then three days ago we got an email from the BBC saying, ‘We’re just not going to do it.’”
By: Cy Musiker
Source: KQED
This Week in History: The Breakup of The Beatles, 20th Century’s Most Successful Rock Band 11 April, 2017 - 0 Comments
“At the actual breakup of the Beatles, it was painful,” Paul McCartney said during a 1990 television interview. "We likened it to a divorce.”
Twenty years earlier on April 10, McCartney signaled the end of the Fab Four during his unveiling of his solo album “McCartney.”
On April 9, McCartney released a Q&A package to the British press in which he explained his reasons for making his solo album. Compiled with the help of Apple executives, the self-interview also contained questions McCartney imagined he would be asked regarding the possibility of the Beatles splitting up.
While stopping short of saying that the band was finished, McCartney stated that he did not know whether his "break with the Beatles" would be temporary or permanent.
It didn’t quite feel real, in part, because of the way McCartney phrased it — and also, the Beatles' final album “Let It Be” was yet to be released.
From the group’s first studio contract in 1962, it was clear that John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were something special.
The Ed Sullivan Show
In February 1964, the group made their first appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” during their first American tour. It took no time at all for “Beatlemania” to overtake America.
Source: VOA News
There's something magical about hearing Sgt. Pepper outtakes in Studio Two of Abbey Road — the same room where the Beatles made the album. The studio looks the same as it did in 1967 — even the same baffles hang on the wall. "Abbey Road is a bit like a salad bowl or a teapot," producer Giles Martin, son and heir to George Martin, tells Rolling Stone. "The walls absorb music."
There's no better place for Rolling Stone to experience an exclusive tour of the Pepper vaults, as Martin spends a hard day's afternoon giving us a one-on-one preview: the previously unheard and unreleased treasures on the new 50th Anniversary Edition of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The box has alternate takes of each song — in some cases drastically different and all offering revelatory insights into the most legendary of rock masterpieces. It's the first time the Beatles have opened their vaults and released new recordings since Anthology.
The new remix has long been craved by hardcore Beatle heads, who have always complained about the diffuse stereo mix. The mono version was the one George Martin, engineer Geoff Emerick and the band spent weeks mixing — but the stereo version was rushed out without the Beatles even there in the room. "They were trying to create this immersive world that the stereo didn't have," Giles Martin says now. "Nobody paid much attention to the stereo mix. What we did was work out what they were doing in the mono mix and apply it to stereo."
No matter how well you know the album, this remix is full of nuances any fan will notice, especially the bottom end —Ringo’s kick drum really reveals new dimensions. It's a tribute to the band and their producer. "My dad, especially on Pepper, was almost like a satellite dish that managed to capture all their ideas and mash them down to this little black piece of plastic that changed the way people listen to music."
By: Rob Sheffield
Source: Rolling Stone
Julian Lennon Teaches Eco Awareness in New Children’s Book – with a Tender Nod to His Rock-Legend Dad 11 April, 2017 - 0 Comments
Julian Lennon is teaching children how to “Imagine” a better world — and build it themselves.
Like his rock-icon father John Lennon, the 54-year-old musician, photographer, film producer and activist is using his art as a rallying cry.
With a little help from his friends, New York Times bestselling author Bart Davis and Croatian illustrator Smiljana Coh, he’s written Touch the Earth, the first in a planned trilogy of illustrated books designed to educate children on the fragile beauty of the planet — and what they can do to protect it.
Out Tuesday (just ahead of Earth Day on April 22), a portion of the proceeds will go to support the efforts of Lennon’s White Feather Foundation, which fights for environmental and humanitarian causes across the globe.
Lennon spoke to PEOPLE about Touch the Earth, its message and its touching connection to his late father.
PEOPLE: What moved you to write the book series?
Julian: After having written songs about environmental and humanitarian issues, worked as executive producer on several award winning documentaries and founded the White Feather Foundation, I asked myself what was next in that line of thought and direction. What could I do to reach people who were complacent about those very issues?
After a lovely chat with a dear friend of mine, Bart Davis — an incredibly talented writer — we mulled over the idea that [children] were the only age group I hadn’t really reached out to, as such. So we decided to play around with ideas, until we came up with the first book together.
By: Jordan Runtagh
Source: People
The storied “Beatles Ashram” awaits beyond a long and winding road across the Ganges River in Rishikesh, the Himalayan town where The Beatles lived in 1968 and composed their curious chapter of renunciation.
Nearly five decades later, the ashram is derelict yet still alive, a peaceful yet eerie abandoned ghost village that the Rajaji Tiger Reserve is now slowly consuming – like endless desires eating away humans and demigods of fame and fortune as The Beatles were circa 1967.
The iconic British band met Transcendental Meditation founder “Maharishi” Mahesh Yogi in London in 1967, and their India odyssey followed. And worldwide media attention followed them.
“I followed The Beatles to Rishikesh with my photographer colleague Raghu Rai,” Saeed Naqui reported in Indian newspaper The Statesman. “Almost every newspaper in the world had sent their senior reporters. Not to much avail, though. The ashram was out of bounds for the media.
” … We walked on ’til I spotted the Maharishi under a tree with The Beatles. I promptly sneaked Raghu Rai in and he took a shot with the aid of his zoom lens. The Statesman had its scoop.”
This printed interview appeared on April 9th 1970 as a press release in advance promotional copies of Paul McCartney's first solo album entitled 'McCartney.'
There have long been misconceptions that Paul had written the questions himself. Paul told the Canadian magazine 'Musical Express' in 1982, "That's one thing that really got misunderstood. I had talked to Peter Brown from Apple and asked him what we were going to do about press on the album. I said, 'I really don't feel like doing it, to tell you the truth,' but he told me that we needed to have something. He said, 'I'll give you some questions and you just write out your answers. We'll put it out as a press release.' Well of course, the way it came out looked like it was specially engineered by me." This was also confirmed in Peter Brown's book 'The Love You Make.'
In the press release interview, Paul answers questions about the future of the Beatles, concerns about the Beatles' new management, as well as questions about the writing and recording of his first solo album.
Paul is asked if the release of the 'McCartney' LP is a rest away from the Beatles or the start of a solo career, to which he replies that it is both. But when asked if he is planning a new album or single with the Beatles he answers in the negative. When questioned if he forsees a time when Lennon and McCartney will become an active songwriting partnership again, he answers directly and simply, "No." Is his break with the Beatles temporary or permanent? Paul's responds that he does not know. When asked the reason for his break with the group, Paul lists: "Personal differences, business differences, musical differences, but most of all because I have a better time with my family."
While John Lennon had privately left the Beatles months earlier, it was from this interview that the story of a Beatles' split spread instantly as news headlines around the world. On April 10th, the Daily Mirror ran a front-page story with the bold print headline, 'PAUL IS QUITTING THE BEATLES,' while CBS News in America declared, "The Beatles are breaking up."
By: Jay Spangler
Source: The Beatles Interviews
Death Of The Day Stuart Sutcliff - April 10, 1962 Hamburg, West Germany Cerebral hemorrhage 10 April, 2017 - 0 Comments
Stuart Fergusson Victor Sutcliffe (23 June 1940 – 10 April 1962) was a Scottish-born artist and musician best known as the original bassist for the Beatles. Sutcliffe left the band to pursue his career as an artist, having previously attended the Liverpool College of Art. Sutcliffe and John Lennon are credited with inventing the name, "Beetles", as they both liked Buddy Holly's band, the Crickets. The band used this name for a while until Lennon decided to change the name to "the Beatles", from the word beat. As a member of the group when it was a five-piece band, Sutcliffe is one of several people sometimes referred to as the "Fifth Beatle".
When the Beatles played in Hamburg, he met photographer Astrid Kircherr, to whom he was later engaged. After leaving the Beatles, he enrolled in the Hamburg College of Art, studying under future pop artist, Eduardo Paolozzi, who later wrote a report stating that Sutcliffe was one of his best students. Sutcliffe earned other praise for his paintings, which mostly explored a style related to abstract impressionism.
While studying in Germany, Sutcliffe began experiencing severe headaches and acute sensitivity to light. In the first days of April 1962, he collapsed in the middle of an art class after complaining of head pains. German doctors performed various checks, but were unable to determine the exact cause of his headaches. On 10 April 1962, he was taken to hospital, but died in the ambulance on the way.
By: Dave Strickson
Source: Wikipedia
The John Lennon who wrote Imagine could also be bitterly cruel. "So Sgt. Pepper took you by surprise," he sang, with vitriol, on How Do You Sleep? on his first solo album in 1971. "You better see right through that mother's eyes.
"Those freaks was right when they said you was dead/The one mistake you made was in your head."
Everyone immediately knew who Lennon was targeting: his fellow former Beatle and "old estranged fiance", Paul McCartney.
Lennon later apologised saying How Do You Sleep? was more about him, than McCartney.
Yet if you really need evidence Sgt. Pepper didn't take "Macca" by surprise, just look at the album cover. According to Rolling Stone magazine, Sgt. Pepper is the greatest album cover in history (followed by Never Mind The Bollocks by the Sex Pistols, and the Beatles White Album in third place).
At the time, it was easily the most expensive record sleeve ever produced (costing £3000 in artwork, compared to the usual £100). It was one of the first "gateway sleeves" (opening like a book). And it included not only the complete song lyrics but an insert with eccentric cardboard cut-outs (one of which was a Sgt. Pepper moustache).
By: Steve Meacham
Source: AFR Weekend
Is THIS the first-ever film footage of future Beatle Paul McCartney - aged 12? 05 April, 2017 - 0 Comments
Could this be the earliest recorded film footage of – a then 12-year-old – Paul McCartney?
Last month we asked whether the earliest piece of film showing future Beatles Paul, John Lennon and George Harrison, along with Paul’s brother, Mike McCartney, had been unearthed.
In that case, tiny figures in the distance were on screen for just a couple of seconds, but local historian and Fab Four fan Peter Hodgson, from Kirkby, was convinced the Liverpool City Police recruitment film from 1958 contained a world first.
Now Peter has scoured another You Tube film – Liverpool Trams: Green Goddesses Remembered, by Online Videos – and he said: “This is my finest find yet... absolute gold!
“It is circa 1955 and at one point a tram is seen heading down East Prescot Road, from Old Swan towards Page Moss, where Paul’s Aunty Jin and Uncle Harry lived.
“He is only on screen for a second but, comparing him with old pictures, I am 100% convinced that is Paul sitting at the window, at 29 miunutes and 25 seconds into the film. And is that his late mother, Mary, sitting behind him? It looks like her.”
Paul was born June 18, 1942, and so would have celebrated his 13th birthday in the summer of 1955.
By: Paddy Shennan
Source: The Liverpool Echo
