Beatles News
Jim Irsay explains why he paid half a million dollars for the iconic instrument.
Last November, John Lennon's Gretsch guitar, the instrument the rock legend used to record the Beatles' 1966 classic "Paperback Writer," hit the auction block, with TracksAuction, the company selling the instrument, calling it "the most significant of John's guitars to come onto the market in the last 30 years." Lennon's cousin, David Birch, had owned the instrument since 1967, but pulled the iconic guitar from auction after it failed to reach its $600,000 reserve.
It isn’t Strawberry Fields.
But outside The Barrymore Hotel in downtown Tampa, John Lennon stands wearing a sport coat, long hair and his signature eyeglasses.
Steve and Cathy Ferguson walked around the corner at The Barrymore Hotel recently and spotted the life-size statue of Lennon. The couple and their friends couldn’t pass up the opportunity to take some selfies.
“We’ve been a lot of places and seen a lot of things, but I’ve never seen just a random Beatles’ statue or one of the Beatles standing in front of a hotel somewhere,” said Steve Ferguson, who was visiting from Virginia with his wife before getting on a cruise ship.
They are extraordinary pictures of the Beatles in their heyday, images never published before.
And, it is claimed, these photographs reveal for the first time a bombshell moment in the band’s history that has left Beatles experts baffled.
It is 1968 and John Lennon coolly stares into the camera. Alongside him, George Harrison has in his shirt pocket a resignation letter from Paul McCartney – apparently written a full two years before he would eventually quit.
That is the claim of Michael Herring, who took the pictures as a 19-year-old art student during a magical day other Beatles fans could only dream about.
Albert Maysles was the least judgmental of documentary filmmakers, which is one compelling reason that Gimme Shelter holds up as the greatest of rock docs, 45 years after its release. The objective eye that he and his collaborator brother brought to the filming of the Rolling Stones at a critical juncture in their history let viewers fill in their own blanks about whether the tragedy at Altamont represented “the end of the 1960s,” as often proposed, or just a gig gone wrong; about whether the Stones were satanic majesties destined to be the soundtrack to very bad deeds, or could be just as baffled in the face of larger forces as any of us. The Maysles brothers’ dispassion, in the face of rock ‘n’ roll legends who would intimidate just about any other filmmakers, was something you could get passionate about.
An Outaouais man has stumbled upon negatives of the John Lennon and Yoko Ono bed-in at Montreal's Queen Elizabeth Hotel in 1969.
John Urban was searching last month for an old negative of a snow sculpture when he came across images of the famous week-long Montreal bed-in that he had never seen before.
"I was pleasantly surprised," he said. "It made my day."
Urban initially thought his former roommate Frank Antonsen borrowed his camera to take the shots, and then left the roll in by mistake.
Louise Harrison says she was more than just a big sister to The Beatles’ George Harrison. She almost was like his second mother.
“I was 11 years old when he was born,” says Harrison, 83, of San Diego. “So I was kind of like a younger mum to him!
“I would look after him, and I’d help him learn how to walk and to talk. And (when he got older and became famous) it was still very much of a supportive relationship.”
Now Harrison’s brother is gone, and she’s found herself continuing that same kind of motherly relationship with a George Harrison impersonator and three other guys in a Beatles tribute band. The Liverpool Legends performs Tuesday at Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall.
'Who was the most important photographer covering the sixties' rock and roll music scene? I can think of no one else whose work was so comprehensive and who captured the essence better than Linda,' Paul McCartney writes about his wife who died tragically of breast cancer at 56.
Paul McCartney remembers his adored wife who died in 1998 with portraits from this family album he states is a testament to her artistic talent.
Linda's passion for music inspired her to work independently and she amassed a major portfolio of photographs of rock musicians from the 1960s to the 1990s.
Linda Eastman McCartney was born in New York City in 1941 and raised in suburban Westchester County.
The Beatles were a constant, compelling presence in the lives of baby boomers for six years between 1964 and 1970. First generation fans, as young as 6 and up through high school and college age, were not only intrigued by the non-stop flow of dazzling new music, images and ideas the Beatles presented; they were also intrigued by the Beatles as people, and boomers emulated the Fab Four in a variety of ways.
A few years ago, Calgary guitar-teacher Brian Griffiths told a student about tearing up the stage with the Beatles in the 1960s.
The student’s mother approached Griffiths months later saying, “You know, I really don’t care – but he still thinks that you actually knew the Beatles…”
Griffiths didn’t correct her, but she underestimated her son’s coach.
Griffiths was the guitarist in The Big Three, one of the most popular bands in England, sharing the stage, a manager and many pints with John, Paul, George and Ringo.
The comic book writer on Beatlemania, Stan Lee and Dr Who - and why every Scouser should move to Indiana
Tim Quinn, a comic-book writer from Crosby, has come full circle.
He has lived in Indiana, worked with members of the Rolling Stones, commissioned work from Stan Lee, drawn for Marvel Comics and created a unique Doctor Who comic strip.
Now back on Merseyside, he is publishing a book of his much-loved work on Doctor Who Magazine, and says that compiling it has taken him back to his childhood on Merseyside when the series started.
