Beatles News
TOM PETTY PAYS TRIBUTE TO HIS FELLOW TRAVELING WILBURYS BANDMATE AND TOUCHES ON HARRISON'S LASTING INFLUENCE ON POPULAR MUSIC
He never wanted to be the star of anything. But, that's the place fate left him. He thought he was best as a team player. But we all know there was just too much great music in him to be contained by modesty.
When the Beatles ended all he had held inside came flowing out, manifesting itself in the 1970 album All Things Must Pass — a landmark LP that is still stunning by the quality of the songs and its complete originality. Like it or not, he was now the frontman of the band and more and more great music would flow from him the rest of his life.
After a series of jaw-dropping multi-generational match-ups during Grammy night 2015, it took an acoustic performance from Paul McCartney, Rihanna and Kanye West to bring the audience to their feet.
The trio debuted for the first time, a live and surprisingly pared-down performance of their surprise smash hit "FourFiveSeconds." The three, clad in various black outfits, took the stage with little accompaniment and sang a passionate performance of the popular tune, which recently debuted on the Billboard charts at No. 54.
Richard Kreitner and The Almanac
If we are told to remember the Beatles’ arrival in the United States fifty years ago last month as an “invasion,” it is as one that was unopposed. But at least one person wasn’t smiling: In an essay published in the March 3, 1964 issue of The Nation, “No Soul in Beatlesville,” a young Simon & Schuster editor named Alan Rinzler objected to the furor over the Liverpool lads’ music and—correctly, if somewhat myopically—attributed Beatlemania to a massive, premeditated PR campaign. The quivering throngs of teen-aged girls, he believed, said much more about the susceptibility of Americans to fashionable trends than it did about the talent or novelty of the group itself. In 2014, Rinzler wrote in an e-mail about his 1964 review, “There’s nothing in it about the Beatles that I agree with now, except my appreciation of their humor.”
The traveling exhibit on the Fab Four will be on display from Wednesday through June.
Beatlemania is taking over the Woody Guthrie Center.
Tulsa is hosting the next stop on the Grammy Museum’s traveling exhibit on the Beatles, with artifacts and exhibits on the Fab Four’s early days in Liverpool to their appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and through the massive shift in pop culture that John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr ushered in.
By JERRY WOFFORD
Fans view George Harrison’s lead guitar as a key element in the Fab Four’s success, but according to a new book, Harrison took a backseat on many of the band’s greatest guitar songs — from “Day Tripper” to “Birthday.”
He didn’t play even a lick on large swaths of the groundbreaking album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” opting for harmonica, congas, comb-and-paper in studio sessions while dutifully practicing the sitar at home three times daily.
Liverpool's Beatles Story hunts for 25 Fab Four ambassadors to mark 25th anniversary
Calling all Beatles fans.
Liverpool’s Beatles Story is celebrating its 25th birthday by launching a search to find the Fab Four’s biggest fans from around the world.
The waterfront tourist hotspot is looking for 25 fans from across the globe to mark the occasion by becoming Beatles Ambassadors.
And one extra special Beatlemaniac will receive an unforgettable experience including a VIP trip to Liverpool including return travel, a stay at the Hard Days Night Hotel, a trip on the Magical Mystery tour and a visit to the Cavern, in addition to a trip down memory lane at the Beatles Story.
BY BARBARA ROSS , KERRY BURKE
Gary and Addie Tomei said in a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit that the 60-foot-high ailanthus tree in Sean Lennon’s front yard on W. 13th St. is growing into the concrete foundation of their townhouse. 'He refuses to do anything ... I like him personally but he’s stubborn and he has a lawyer who is very belligerent,' Gary Tomei said about his neighbor.
Marisa Tomei’s parents are tired of giving peace a chance with John Lennon’s son, demanding $10 million in damages because his front yard “stink tree” has pushed through the foundation of their Greenwich Village townhouse.
Paul McCartney announces a four-night, two-city run through Japan with his “Out There” tour scheduling three shows for Tokyo and one for Osaka.
It’s a good bet that Macca’s fans in Japan are hoping his April set of dates will come off without a hitch, unlike 2014 when illness forced the former Beatle had to cancel a tour of the country. At that time RocketNews24 said McCartney had “canceled on the country of Japan 51 percent of the time.”
The MBE medal that John Lennon famously rejected has been unearthed in a royal vault and now, 40 years after Lennon sent the award back to the Queen, Beatles historians are calling for it to be dusted off and put on public display.
The Fab Four were invested as Members of the British Empire in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 1965, after topping record charts around the world.
But later Lennon decided that he had sold out to the Establishment and returned his MBE to Her Majesty 25th November 1969 as part of ongoing peace protests masterminded with Yoko Ono.
by John Pfeiffer
When it comes to the subject of Yoko Ono, so much vilification has been written about her that it’s almost pointless to reiterate here. But love her or hate her, you have to think about the fact that if John Lennon saw something wonderful and original in Ono, what was the issue with the rest of the world? I happen to believe that it comes down to one of the planet’s oldest emotions. That illogical, crazy reaction we know as jealousy. The fact that millions thought she broke up The Beatles was really just a reaction to the fact that they wanted their very first “boy band" to continue dancing like monkeys for their entertainment. The world and especially America wanted the Fab Four to always be a cartoonish fabrication.
