Beatles News

Imagine being secretary to The Beatles. Freda Kelly does not have to imagine it; she lived it for 11 years, and the Docutah International Documentary Film Festival is bringing Kelly and the film about her life with The Beatles, “Good Ol’ Freda,” to St. George Feb. 23 and 25. Kelly went to work for a “new band” when she was just a shy Liverpudlian teenager, and as the Beatles’ devoted secretary and friend, she was there to witness the evolution – advances and setbacks, breakthroughs and challenges – of the greatest band in history.

Previously unseen footage of the Beatles performing on their first north American tour is expected to sell for more than £10,000 at an auction. The 8mm film is from the band's performance in Montreal, Canada in September 1964 and shows rare colour footage of the Fab Four backstage. SHARE Filmed by the father of one of The Four Frenchmen, who were supporting the Beatles, the film also shows part of their performance and a press conference after the show.

Music producer James Teej never expected Paul McCartney would give his stamp of approval to a dark remix of one of his songs. And he certainly didn't think his collaboration would take him to the Grammy Awards either. On Sunday, the musician will be in the running for best remixed recording alongside German producer Timo Maas for their update of Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five.Their version takes the song from McCartney and Wings' 1973 album Band on the Run and reshapes it with a new edge. "Quite frankly, doing an electronic remix of a rock 'n' roll song is pretty tricky," says Teej, who spent his childhood in Quebec and Alberta. "You're going to have some people that absolutely love the outcome and ... some people that absolutely hate it."

Recent news reports have noted that the best selling book at Amazon is currently George Orwell’s classic novel of dystopian horror, 1984. Given our national circumstances, I suppose this could be seen as a positive, an effort on the part of at least some of the populace to educate themselves, even if a significant number of others in the populace (including me) wish that this sudden urge toward historical and cultural literacy had occurred before a certain November event. Such, such is life, as the poet says. We seem only to want to listen to our poets and sages in times of distress.

Because it’s the dead of winter, because it’s bleak, because when something perfect is broken it sometimes comes back stronger — here are 10 of the best Beatles covers: • Fiona Apple: “Across the Universe.” Recorded for the 1998 movie “Pleasantville” and produced by pop maestro Jon Brion, Apple’s gorgeous version of the John Lennon classic induces a feeling akin to spiraling out across the galaxy, buoyed along by her rich, calm-to-the-point-of-almost-bored voice, an affect a deity or a supremely cool girl might assume about the wonders of the cosmos. It’s the rare cover that doesn’t radically change its approach to the song but manages to improve on the original.

He is rock ‘n’ roll’s leading memorabilia detective, a collector who has tracked down John Lennon’s Japanese language class doodles and Elton John’s first upright piano. Now Tom Fontaine is selling off his unique slice of music history with a warning that the market for mementos is flooded with fakes. An obsessive collector since first seeing The Beatles on US television in 1964, Fontaine, from Indianapolis, has acquired more than 2,000 items including autographs and signed contracts to stage clothing and furniture from stars ranging from Elvis Presley to Jimi Hendrix. Fontaine, 58, whose expertise in authenticating memorabilia is sought by auction houses, is now downsizing and has begun to place his archive for sale on the Pledge Music direct-to-fan crowdfunding site.

Even though the Beatles hired a film crew to document the 1969 recording sessions for what would become Let It Be, it's a bit uncommon to see studio footage of the band at work before that time. Which is why the "Hey Bulldog" music video is so unique. The February 1968 footage seen in the clip was originally utilized in the "Lady Madonna" promotional video, until someone (perhaps a talented lip reader) noticed the band was actually recording "Hey Bulldog" (The band recorded both songs during the same sessions). The footage was later re-cut to fit "Hey Bulldog," one of many standouts from the Yellow Submarine soundtrack album.

After wowing audiences at Edinburgh Festival Fringe and King’s Head Theatre, London in 2015, where one of the audience was Neil Aspinall’s widow Suzi, Davide Verazzini’s charming play A Life With The Beatles is to be staged at various venues as part of a 15-performance Scotland-wide tour in February and March, including The Catstrand in New Galloway on February 21. Told from the unique perspective of Neil Aspinall, the only one who was always by their side and who knew everyone and everything. Yet where thousands of books have been written by people who never even met The Beatles, Neil’s steadfast loyalty meant he took his secrets to his grave when he died in 2008.

Ahead of Paul McCartney's Flowers in the Dirt reissue, the rollicking "Twenty Fine Fingers," an unreleased demo featuring McCartney singing alongside Elvis Costello, has been unveiled. "Twenty Fine Fingers," often bootlegged but never officially released, is presented twice on the Flowers in the Dirt reissue. The version above is the "original" take on the track, while the song's 1988 demo is also included among a batch of 18 demo recordings featuring Costello unearthed for the reissue. The massive Flowers in the Dirt deluxe box set, featuring three discs, a DVD and a 112-page hardcover book, is due out March 24th. The reissue will also be available in other formats. McCartney recruited Costello to collaborate on the 1989 album, with Costello's co-written "My Brave Face," "Don't Be Careless Love," "That Day Is Done" and "You Want Her Too" making the cut. Other demoed tracks like "The Lovers That Never Were," "So Like Candy" and "Playboy to a Man" ended up on other albums by both artists, while "Twenty Fine Fingers" and "Tommy's Coming Home" remained unreleased.

The best thing people can hope for, in regards to new music each year, is that The Arctic Monkeys get in the studio, next big thing emerges, or Kanye West postpones his next album. However, could this year see the release of material from the likes of Bob Dylan, The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones? Intrigued? Let us explain. For this article, we’ve purposely focused on The Fab Four, or we’d be waffling all day, but the same theory applies to any band of that era. Chances are you don’t know much about copyright law. It’s pretty complicated and tedious. Heck, not even the artists know the rules, cue Paul McCartney suing Sony for clarification after Duran Duran’s interpretation of the laws was “rejected.”