Beatles News

A musician from Cardiff has used a sample of John Lennon on his debut album after getting permission from Yoko Ono. It’s something of a coup for Gizmo Varillas, the 27-year-old whose family are from Spain but who moved to Cardiff when he was five. The Lennon estate very rarely grants permission for Lennon’s voice to be sampled, but the singer-songwriter who grew up in the Canton area of the city, managed to persuade the wife of the late-Beatles’ guitarist to allow him to use a sample of a Lennon interview on his song No War - which features on his debut album El Dorado.

It has been shut down, demolished, and rebuilt, but Liverpool's Cavern Club remains an icon of pop history. As it celebrates its 60th year, those who were there in its heyday recall its evolution from subterranean jazz club to international music Mecca. Peter Morris was a friend of the club's first owner, Alan Sytner, who modelled the basement venue on Le Caveau de la Huchette - a jazz place he'd seen in Paris. He recalled how they were drinking at The Grapes pub in Mathew Street when the idea was formed.

David Magnus was once told that he’d never make a photographer. But, at the age of 19, in 1963 he was invited to photograph the Beatles at Stowe School — the first of many assignments he’d undertake for the band. “They were absolutely charming. They were great fun to be with and I found them very easy to work with throughout,” says Magnus, a member of Stanmore and Canons Park Synagogue. Magnus went on to photograph everyone from Gerry and the Pacemakers to Cilla Black for NEMS Enterprises, the management company formed by Beatles manager Brian Epstein.

The children's home immortalised by John Lennon in The Beatles hit Strawberry Fields Forever is to be redeveloped by the Salvation Army. An £8m scheme has been unveiled for the home, where Lennon played as a child. The venture will combine an education centre for young people with learning difficulties and an exhibition on the home, the song and Lennon's early life. The gates at the site, which is closed to he public, are a popular attraction for Beatles fans visiting Liverpool. The plans were announced on the 50th anniversary of the release of the single, which was a double-A side with Penny Lane, reaching number two in the UK charts and number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the USA.

Liverpool's most popular museum, The Beatles Story, recently asked any "Fab Four" fans celebrating their 64th birthday in 2017 to contact them. It's 50 years since the first song the Beatles recorded for their iconic 1967 album, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, was completed. George Martin (the band's legendary producer) called When I'm Sixty-Four the album's "jokey song", a classic counterpoint to George Harrison's sombre, spiritual and sitar-influenced Within You without You which started Side Two. Yet Paul McCartney's jaunty, music hall melody now causes more angst and introspection than any of the other more exulted tracks on the album. Why? Because Baby Boomers regard it with special dread.

Photographer Shimpei Asai was lucky enough to step behind the curtain with John, Paul, Ringo and George on their 1966 trip to Tokyo. The rare, behind-the-scenes photos have only just been released in the limited edition photo book Hello, Goodbye. “Though there had to be a lot of security, the Beatles actually escaped from it briefly. I think they accepted their situation though.” “I had never felt this before. I did know about hysterical fans, but the atmosphere in the Budokan was different. It was as if all the audience shared one idea, and this was the only time they had.” “I tried not to make them conscious I carried the camera, so they wouldn’t feel my presence.”

A pair of John Lennon ’s sunglasses which he stamped on in a fit of rage and threw in the bin have emerged at auction. Luckily his uncle Charlie Lennon fetched them out of a bin and had them repaired and they are now tipped to sell for £3,500. The circular, metal framed glasses were owned by Lennon in the 1970s, post-Beatles , and are accompanied by a fascinating letter from Charlie Lennon explaining the incident in which they were broken. An irate Lennon, according to the letter, stamped on his glasses after an unhappy phone call and chucked them in the bin. His uncle, who died in 2002, decided to salvage the glasses from the bin and had them repaired.

The movie rights for The Beatle Who Vanished, a book by Jim Berkenstadt about the life of drummer Jimmie Nicol who was a Beatle for 13 days, have been secured by Alex Orbison, son of Roy Orbison on behalf of the family's Roy's Boys Films, and Ashley Hamilton's 449 Productions. Hamilton is the son of actor George Hamilton and actress Alana Stewart. Berkenstadt's book, first published in 2013, told Nicol's story in detail. It included accounts of Nicol with the Beatles, his pre- and post-Beatles career and included many archival photos. Nicol temporarily replaced Ringo Starr when the Beatle was hospitalized in 1964 for tonsillitis and pharyngitis just as the group was about to play a series of concerts. The new drummer passed an audition in front of Brian Epstein and received a new mop-top haircut. After a rehearsal with the group, he made his first formal appearance with them June 4 at K.B. Hallen in Copenhagen, Denmark.

“Wings? They’re only the band The Beatles could have been!” Television comedy character Alan Partridge, in his inimitable style, summed up the problem Paul McCartney would always face. How do you follow being in the biggest, most famous, most influential pop group of all time? If you’d been in Newcastle on this night 45 years ago, you’d have found out.

The worldwide popularity of the Beatles endures a half-century after the lads from Liverpool led the British Invasion of the ’60s, as evidenced by a full house last week at Malibu City Hall for the Library Speaker Series kickoff event of 2017. Beatles expert Scott Freiman presented “Roll Up! Deconstructing The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour.” Fab Four fans of all ages were treated to a two-hour multimedia presentation detailing how the groundbreaking rock group created their psychedelic tour de force.