Beatles News

The Beatles legend Ringo Starr has a defiant remark when he was asked about approaching a major milestone.

The drummer will mark his 85th birthday next month. However, Ringo appears to take exception whenever someone mentions his age, reports the Daily Mail.  “It’s another birthday. No one does anything these days without mentioning your age,” the former Fab Four member said. 

In recent months fans have commented on Ringo’s “unbelievable” energy during recent live shows. It came as the Yellow Submarine creator impressed them with his onstage antics, reports the Express. Commenting on his performances on social media, one fan wrote: "Ringo Starr at 84-years-old. Unbelievable."

Another expressed their joy that both Ringo and fellow former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney are still performing over 65 years after forming the band. They wrote: “Ringo Starr at 84 is unbelievable. We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and third parties based on our knowledge of you. More info 

“I love that he and Paul McCartney are still out ther details

The Beatles' legendary status is undisputed, but there are ongoing debates about their best live performance. Even though they stopped touring in 1966 due to the strain of performing for audiences, Ringo Starr, the band's drummer, and their fans can't seem to agree on the group's top concert.‌

After a brief reunion for an impromptu gig on the roof of Abbey Road studios, The Beatles never returned to a stadium or concert hall following their last tour in 1966. During their controversial US tour, marked by John Lennon's statement that they were "bigger than Jesus," many believe The Beatles gave their most outstanding live performance.

This show is not only considered possibly The Beatles' greatest live spectacle, but it also stands out as one of the first major arena stadium concerts. 

One fan posted online: "I was just thinking about how 'The Beatles at Shea Stadium' was the first ever major concert in an arena stadium. Has anyone seen the film?" On August 11, 1966, The Beatles performed a short setlist of 11 songs at New York's Shea Stadium.

However, these 11 songs have made a significant mark in music history, with many fans declaring them the peak of The Beatles' live performances. Re details

By the time the Beatles called it a day in late 1969, they’d recorded and released more than 200 songs — most of them originals — and left dozens more in the vault. While the bulk of those unissued tracks ranged from rough demos to jams, several were completed recordings that, for one reason or another, they rejected.

Among them was a song that was the first ever written expressly for drummer Ringo Starr: “If You’ve Got Trouble.” Composed by John Lennon for inclusion on 1965’s Help!, the song was a riff-driven rocker built around the I-IV-V chords common to blues and rock. In many respects it bears similarity to a few other Beatles tracks from this period, including “She’s a Woman,” “I’m Down” and “I Feel Fine,” another Lennon-composed riff rocker, albeit one with a great deal more sophistication than “If You’ve Got Trouble.”

From the start of the Beatles’ recording career, Starr was given a vocal spot on each of their albums (except for 1964’s A Hard Day’s Night) in order to please his rabid fan base. It may be hard to fathom today, but for at least the first year of Beatlemania, Starr w details

As the news of Brian Wilson’s passing reverberates around the music world, it’s heartening to know that his contributions are celebrated by artists young and old. Paul McCartney, one of Wilson’s biggest admirers, has called The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” the “greatest song ever written.”

The quote comes from Charles Granata’s 2003 book Wouldn’t it Be Nice: Brian Wilson and the Making of the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, and McCartney reiterated his affection for the song in a 2007 interview with BBC Radio 1, where he discussed why “God Only Knows” means so much to him. “It’s one of the few songs that reduces me to tears every time I hear it,” McCartney said. “It’s really just a love song, but it’s brilliantly done. It shows the genius of Brian.” (For what it’s worth, we agree with his assessment.)

McCartney’s respect for Wilson extends beyond just “God Only Knows.” Over the years, he’s often reflected on how Wilson’s musical innovations shaped his own work with The Beatles. “Brian Wilson sort of proved himself to be a really amazing composer,” McCartn details

 Yesterday, the Beach Boys legend Brian Wilson died aged 82, as celebrity tributes poured in. Both surviving Beatles, Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Ringo Starr, were influenced by the Californian’s music and knew him personally. Now the 82-year-old and almost 85-year-old have paid tribute on social media with pictures of him.

Macca wrote: “Brian had that mysterious sense of musical genius that made his songs so achingly special. The notes he heard in his head and passed to us were simple and brilliant at the same time. I loved him, and was privileged to be around his bright shining light for a little while. How we will continue without Brian Wilson, ‘God Only Knows’. Thank you, Brian. - Paul”

Meanwhile, Ringo added: “God bless Brian Wilson. Peace and love to all his family. Ringo.”

Source: express.co.uk

Growing up as the son of Beatles legend Ringo Starr wasn't the easiest for drummer Zak Starkey.

The ex-Oasis drummer, 59 - who was recently sacked from The Who - said he struggled to get the approval from his father when performing in front of him.

Zak admitted the rock 'n' roll legend, 84, would often brutally slate his drumming skills and say 'the most cutting f****** s***'.

Speaking to The Sun about their relationship, Zak reflected: 'My dad never opened the doors for me. 'He’d watch me and say the most cutting f****** s***. But he is the greatest rock ’n’ roll drummer in the world. He’s better now than he was then.'

From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the Daily Mail's showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop.  Growing up as the son of Beatles legend Ringo Starr, 84, wasn't the easiest for drummer Zak Starkey, 59 (pictured together in 2016)

The ex-Oasis drummer - who was recently sacked from The Who - said he struggled to get the approval from his father when performing in front of him. Zak also insisted there is 'no grudge' with his former The Who bandmates after he was sacked last month.

In early June 1969, the Beatles scored what would be their last No. 1 song (which also happened to be one of their most controversial) before their split later that year. Interestingly, only two of the Fab Four are on the track, signaling the fractures that would dismantle the band as a whole months later.

Paul McCartney recalled John Lennon being in an “impatient” mood when the latter Beatle brought the song to his bandmate. “I was happy to help,” McCartney would later say. Based on the song’s chart performance, everyone else was happy to hear it. 

By the time (some of) the Beatles got into the studio at Abbey Road to start recording “The Ballad of John and Yoko,” they were already on the verge of splitting up for good. As the title would suggest, John Lennon was well into his relationship with Yoko Ono, having recently married her two months prior to the recording session in March 1969. Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr were also branching out individually. In fact, the bandmates’ separation was the impetus for only Lennon and McCartney recording the track in the first place.

“By the time we came to record Abbey Road and Let It B details

John Lennon is considered by many to be a poet. But the Beatle revealed his more prosaic side in a letter penned in 1962 to his future wife Cynthia Powell, in which he declared: “I wish I was on the way to your flat with the Sunday papers and chocies and a throbber.”

The intimate missive, which includes a complaint about his bandmate Paul McCartney’s snoring, is now being sold at auction by Christie’s with a £30,000 to £40,000 estimate.

Written over five nights after concerts during their Hamburg residency in April 1962, Lennon, then aged 21, wrote: “I love love love you and I’m missing you like mad … I wish I was on the way to your flat with the Sunday papers and chocies and a throbber.

“I wonder why all the newspapers wrote about Stu … I haven’t seen Astrid since the day we arrived I’ve thought of going to see her but I would be so awkward.

“Paul’s leaping about on my head (he’s in a bunk on top of me and he’s snoring) … Shurrup Mcarntey [sic]!”

Source: theguardian.com/Jamie Grierson

details

She's Leaving Home was one of the most spellbinding moments on the Beatles’ 1967 magnum opus Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. A heartstring-tugging document of coming of age angst, its sweeping orchestral arrangement supported a lyric that was inspired by a very real story.

The Paul McCartney-penned narrative gently expanded on a young girl’s decision to leave her stuffy, conservative parents’ home and - at Wednesday morning at 5 o’clock (as the day begins) - sneaks out to join the man (from the motor trade) that she was going to start her new life with.

Marrying sentiment with rebellion, She's Leaving Home balances a sympathetic, and nostalgic, longing for the past with the increasing rejection of conservatism then rife within 1960s youth culture.

This was characterised by its parent-perspective chorus lyric - sung in typically spine-tingling fashion by John Lennon.

We're not the first to say it, and we won't be the last, but it's wonderful stuff all round.  But the unlikely, fateful layers behind its origin deepen its magic…

Firstly, there's that newspaper story that McCartney based his lyric on. Within the February 27th 1967 edition of the details

On This Day, June 11, 2002…

Beatles legend Paul McCartney married his second wife, Heather Mills, a former model and activist, whose leg was amputated in 1993 after she was run over by a police motorcycle in London.

The couple wed at Castle Leslie in the village of Glaslough in County Monaghan, Ireland, with the celebration attended by several celebrities, including McCartney’s Beatles bandmate Ringo Starr.

The wedding took place four years after the death of McCartney’s first wife, Linda McCartney, from cancer.

McCartney and Mills welcomed their first and only child together, daughter Beatrice, in 2003, and three years later announced they had separated, with their acrimonious divorce finalized in 2008.

McCartney went on to marry a third time, to New Yorker Nancy Shevell, in 2011. They are still married to this day.

Source: everettpost.com/ABC News

History is rarely kind to the third voice in a group that changed the world. But George Harrison didn’t just leave The Beatles in 1970 — he arrived.

And arrive he did with All Things Must Pass, a sprawling, audacious triple album that served as both a catharsis and a declaration. Central to that project was My Sweet Lord, a track that remains — five decades on — a towering moment in solo Beatles history. A spiritual lament disguised as a pop song. A cross-cultural anthem that dared to blend gospel exultation with Eastern devotion. A transcendent piece of music that, as it happened, may not have been entirely original.

Harrison wrote My Sweet Lord in Copenhagen in December 1969 during a creative burst on tour with Delaney & Bonnie. Surrounded by fellow believers in music’s power — Billy Preston, Eric Clapton — Harrison began piecing together a track that was less “boy meets girl” and more “soul meets divinity.” Its DNA was gospel, its mantra was Krishna. The chords were Preston’s, the “hallelujahs” came from Delaney Bramlett. Harrison brought the sincerity. “I don’t feel guilty or bad about it,” he would late details

Brimming with an overflow of material, The Beatles uncorked The White Album in 1968. Technically titled The Beatles, it was the first and only double album that they’d release in their career.

The White Album offers just about every type of music imaginable over the course of its four sides. It also offers some fantastic factoids and trivial information about its making, including these five juicy tidbits. 

The Beatles started writing many of the songs for The White Album while on retreat in India in 1968, learning meditation at the foot of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. As such, several songs were thinly veiled depictions of actual events from the camp and the people involved in them. “Dear Prudence” referenced Prudence Farrow (sister of actress Mia) and her refusal to come out of her tent. “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” was a jibe at a gung-ho hunter within the entourage. And “Sexy Sadie” was originally titled “Maharishi”. The song reflected how John Lennon ultimately felt let down by the “Giggling Guru”. 

Many, including certain Beatles themselves, have pointed to the White Album sessions as the beginning of the end for t details

During the pandemic, Ian Leslie wrote a Substack essay called “64 Reasons to Celebrate Paul McCartney,” arguing that despite his accomplishments, the ex-Beatle was underrated. But he didn’t delve much into McCartney’s relationship with John Lennon, writing, “I’m trying to keep this essay-length and that subject, inexhaustibly fascinating, is a book in itself.”

Inspired by this, Leslie went and wrote that book: “John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs.” Despite a seemingly endless parade of Beatles books, Leslie offers a fresh take, telling the story of the band through the duo’s relationship and the story of their relationship through the songs they were singing.

 In a video interview from London, Leslie said most previous tomes recount the facts of the story without doing the music justice – “which is what this is all about and you can’t understand them without understanding the music” – or failed to explore the pair’s relationship “with depth or emotional intelligence.”

He was initially hesitant to pitch a book, since he wasn’t a music writer. Still, as a journalist, he’d written details

The Beatles are often hailed as geniuses of pop, but John Lennon shrugged off grandiose claims about his talent.

Loading your audio article

Loading audio...

The Beatles were legends in their own lifetime.

Countless books were written about the band in the decade they were together. Many more have been written in the 55 years since the breakup.

Were The Beatles in Disney's classic movie The Jungle Book?

How The Beatles became the ultimate Motown band

Arguably the best is Hunter Davies's The Beatles: The Authorised Biography.

The only authorised account of the band written while they were a going concern, Davies published the book in 1968 having spent 18 months with the group, speaking extensively with the band themselves as well as thei friends, family and associates.

While the book is the origin of many of the now-canonical stories about The Beatles, it's written with a rare mix of respect and distance that, together with its contemporaneous nature, sets it apart from most other biographies.

So many Beatles bios focus on the musical genius of the Fab Four, painting the group – and especially John Lennon and Paul McCartney &n details

For the most part, the Beatles had a keen sense of which member should take on lead vocals. Most of their catalog feels right and just–every member playing to their strengths. However, there are a few songs that could’ve done well with a switcharoo. Below, find three Beatles songs that arguably beg for a different frontman.

“When I’m Sixty Four”

While “When I’m Sixty Four” screams “Paul McCartney”, it would have an entirely different tone if Ringo Starr were to have been the lead vocalist. From McCartney’s point-of-view, this Beatles song is a syrupy-sweet mark of devotion. Like many of his best tracks, “When I’m Sixty Four” sees McCartney wear his heart on his sleeve when he sings, Will you still need me, will you still feed me / When I’m sixty-four? If this song had been given to Starr, it would’ve been a light-hearted tune, akin to “Yellow Submarine”. It would’ve been given a shot of humor–one that would’ve likely helped this song in its heyday. Many, like John Lennon, felt this tune was a little too schmaltzy for the Beatles. Starr’s irreverent take would’ve helped to cut details