Beatles News
By Catherine Jones
Beatles tribute bands on the enduring appeal of Liverpool's Fab Four
THE legacy of the Beatles on popular culture is being celebrated in a new digital music documentary being released next week.
Come Together features performances by 10 of an estimated 8,000 international Beatles tribute bands keeping the music of the Liverpool icons alive around the world.
The film, being released as a digital VOD, was the brainchild of documentary makers Steve Ison and John Scofield and was shot primarily in and around Liverpool – including the Cavern Club – during International Beatleweek, five decades after the band was formed in 1960.
It is narrated by John Lennon’s half-sister Julia Baird.
BY RANDY LEWIS
A shirtless Mick Jagger, relaxing poolside in Savannah, Ga., in 1965, intently studies the back cover of Bob Dylan’s then-new “Bringing It All Back Home” album, still in the shrink wrap.
John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr gaze with delight as George Harrison tosses a yellow balloon into the air as the Beatles cavort in 1964 on the patio of a private Bel-Air mansion.
These are images (see our slideshow for many others) from a trove of 3,500 previously unpublished photos of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones shot from 1964 to 1966 by their road manager, Bob Bonis.
By Eleanor Barlow
Julia Lennon lived Blomfield Road house when John was a teenager
The former home of John Lennon’s mum, dubbed the “House of Sin” by his aunt, is up for auction.
The semi-detached home on Blomfield Road, in Allerton’s Springwood estate, was where Lennon’s mum Julia lived when he was a teenager and is due to go under the hammer at Liverpool Town Hall on March 31.
The Beatle’s sisters Julia and Jackie lived in the three-bedroom council house with his mum and her new partner John ‘Bobby’ Dykins.
Lennon lived with his aunt Mimi in nearby Menlove Avenue and was a frequent visitor to the house, where he would often stay over.
Former Beatle's 18th solo album will feature appearances by Joe Walsh, Peter Frampton and Richard Marx
By Kory Grow | January 29, 2015
Ringo Starr will not go quietly into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
. About a month before his induction, the ex-Beatle will release his 18th solo album, Postcards From Paradise, which will contain 11 original songs.
Among them are "Island in the Sun," the first he has written with his All-Starr Band – Steve Lukather, Todd Rundgren, Gregg Rolie, Richard Page, Warren Ham and Gregg Bissonette – and songs featuring appearances by a number of his famous friends. "If I am recording and you're in town and drop by, you're going to be on the record," Starr said in a statement. Joe Walsh, Dave Stewart, Richard Marx, Peter Frampton and Glen Ballard, among many others, will make appearances on Postcards.
A star-studded concert at Liverpool’s Epstein Theatre is the latest fundraiser in the high-profile Statue 4 Eppy campaign.
Organisers are hoping to both raise the profile of the campaign further and boost funds to create a statue in honour of legendary Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein in his hometown of Liverpool.
Epstein took four Liverpool performers and shaped their careers into the biggest pop band in the world.
Now Liverpool campaigners are working tirelessly to raise £70,000 to have Brian’s efforts formally recognised with a permanent statue.
It will be created by acclaimed sculptor Tom Murphy, who was also behind the statue of John Lennon, which now stands in Liverpool John Lennon Airport.
Celebrity, unlike influence, has an expiration date, but the value of older pop culture still shines in Kanye West's collaboration with the ex-Beatle.NOAH BERLATSKY
The constant, unforgiving churn of pop culture seems designed expressly to let the old know they’re boring and irrelevant. The carefully coded and collated cultural knowledge that defined your childhood, or even your adulthood, passes its sell-by date, and you're left staring at some ugly Nirvana shirts, wondering vaguely whether you should put them back in the closet for another pointless decade, or just chuck them now.
The reaction to the new Kanye/McCartney collaboration seems to argue for the "chuck them now" option. As one Twitter user declared after hearing the new track: "who tf is Paul McCartney ???!?? this is why I love kanye for shining light on unknown artists." Kanye fans, apparently, have never heard of the Beatles. Kids these days are broadly and hideously ignorant, and Western culture is doomed.
Screaming teenage girls got a lot of attention in 1964 and they're the ones immortalized in the black and white footage, but the largest number of first-generation Beatle fans were actually boys and girls between five and 10 years old -- boomers born in the mid-to-late 1950s. Though not old enough to go to shows like their older brothers and sisters, they were paying very close attention. If you're between 55 and 60, give or take a year or two, and feel an irrationally strong connection to the Beatles, this connection makes sense, given that the Beatles changed boomer childhoods in seven significant ways.
By: Steve Marinucci AXS Contributor Jan 22, 2015 5 days ago
The 50th anniversary of the Beatles' iconic Shea Stadium show will be the theme of this year's Fab 4 Music Festival held in Danbury, Connecticut, this summer, Liverpool Productions announced Jan. 21. The day-long show will take place on Aug. 15, exactly 50 years to the day after the legendary concert.
| Source: San Francisco Art Exchange
Major exhibition of photos from Pattie Boyd's illustrious life in Rock 'n' Roll
Original Layla Painting on display for first time in US
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 26, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- San Francisco Art Exchange (SFAE) announces the return of photographer Pattie Boyd, aka Layla, in a new exhibit opening February 10 – March 15, 2014. The Gallery is hosting a Valentine's Day reception for collectors of her work to meet her in person.
Former wife of both George Harrison and Eric Clapton, Boyd's first-ever photography exhibit was held at SFAE in 2005. She received global accolades and the experience inspired her to write the autobiography, Wonderful Tonight, chronicling her life as the wife of two music legends who were best friends.
There are Beatles lovers. There are Beatles fanatics. And then there are guys who spend months scrutinizing every Beatles track over and over, meticulously taking notes, and writing about the experience.
You can figure out where self-described Beatles freak Ted Montgomery fits.
With his new book, "The Beatles Through Headphones," the Brighton resident and University of Michigan staffer set out to log the "quirks, peccadilloes, nuances and sonic delights of the greatest popular music ever recorded," as the subtitle declares.
