Beatles News

Records from John Lennon’s school days suggest there may be more than a grain of autobiographical truth in Getting Better, the Beatles song that includes the line “I used to get mad at my school, the teachers that taught me weren’t cool”.

Auction house Sotheby’s said on Wednesday it would be offering a lined sheet, torn from a 1950s school notebook, listing the 15-year-old Lennon’s detentions for such transgressions as “impertinence” and “not wearing school cap”.

Sotheby’s said the sheet, listing 29 detentions imposed on Lennon between September 1955 and July 1956 at Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool, was rescued from a bonfire of old school records by an eagle-eyed member of staff in the 1970s.

“The frequent entries on this sheet from six different teachers reveal that John Lennon’s rebellious nature and irreverence were well established traits of his character even at the age of 15,” Sotheby’s said in a news release.

On one day, September 12, 1955, Lennon received five detentions from two teachers for a range of offences from “no hwk” (homework) to “talk after two warnings” and & details

The late Ray Charles—the great American singer, songwriter, musician and composer—was born on this date (September 23) in 1930.

No, this factoid doesn't have a lot to do with guitars.

It does, however, bring to mind John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers' interesting 1966 version of Charles' 1959 hit "What'd I Say." The Bluesbreakers version features a young Eric Clapton on guitar.

To put it bluntly, even though it appears on a groundbreaking, legendary guitar album—Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton—"What'd I Say" is not a standout track by any means. It just sort of sits there, and its lengthy drum solo (played by Hughie Flint) isn't exactly "Moby Dick." Who knows, maybe it was a crowd favorite at the Bluesbreakers' live shows.

Anyway, there is this oddity to consider: When the rest of the band comes back into the song after Flint's drum solo (at 3:36), Clapton is playing the very-hard-to-miss guitar riff from the Beatles' late-1965 single "Day Tripper"—over and over again. Blues Breakers was recorded in March 1966, so there's no question as to whose riff it was.

Is it theft? Plagiarism? Maybe by today's standards. But in reality, it's just a 21-year-old guitarist details

Unpublished negatives of John Lennon with his wife Yoko Ono, taken just two days before he died, are set to go on sale at auction in the US, with prices expected to reach tens of thousands of dollars.

The set of photographs was taken by BBC producer Paul Williams just 48 hours before the former Beatle was gunned down outside his home in New York, and is part of the same lot as a controversial peace of film footage showing John Lennon and the other Beatles on stage in Blackpool.

The photos were taken during John's final interview at the Hit Factory, a legendary Manhattan recording studio. DJ Andy Peebles conducted the interview for the BBC, and the material to emerge became known as the Last Lennon Tapes. Williams shot nine photos of Lennon with Ono, and one solo shot of Ono. 23 of the photos feature Peebles with unidentified people. Bidding for the negatives begins at $14,000 for the lot at Nate D Sanders Auctions.

The very last photos of John Lennon were taken by Annie Leibovitz on the day of his death.

Part of the same collection going under the hammer is 3 ½ minutes of 8 mm footage of the Beatles performing at the ABC Theatre in Blackpool, England along with backstage clips.

By: details

In 1989, a Liverpool-born music journalist was contacted by Paul McCartney's office in London and invited to interview the star. They had met before and enjoyed a good rapport. In the years that followed, Paul Du Noyer (right) continued to meet, interview and work closely with McCartney, their conversations moving between music – life as one of the Beatles and later with Wings – and his most private feelings on John Lennon and his beloved Linda, among others.

Over the last 35 years Du Noyer has interviewed McCartney more often than any other magazine writer. Conversations with McCartney is the result. Drawing from their interview sessions and coupling McCartney’s own candid thoughts with Du Noyer’s observations, the book is an intimate portrait spanning McCartney’s entire musical career.

THE nearest I have come to dying, so far, was an asthma attack in childhood. I found myself in a Liverpool hospital with an oxygen mask clamped to my face and radio headphones on my ears. The station was broadcasting the Beatles’ new record Abbey Road in its entirety. That is why, when people call the group’s music ‘life-affirming’, I understand them in a very literal way. At details

What is it that keeps the phenomenon of The Beatles going and going and going?

Without the Beatles, music would simply not exist. Songwriting, musical innovation and comedy; the Fab Four were geniuses at everything. The depth of emotion with which they have written about love, it’s just incredible! Not just that, they have created music that can make you laugh, cry, smile and think.

Well, what have I learnt from them?

I have learnt that people change, people fall out, people get divorced, people forgive, people don’t forgive, people make mistakes, people get left behind, people die.

..and that you get one chance to live, so you better enjoy it.

I believe one of the reasons why they continue to affect us is because they taught us (and are still teaching us) lessons we’ll never forget. So, here, for example, are 11 of the most important things that we all learned from The Beatles:

1. There are many things we want in life, but in the end, All You Need Is Love

2. Everybody’s Got Something To Hide

3. Money Can’t Buy Me Love

By: Shuvro Ghoshal

Source: Storypick

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She was a vision of loveliness who attracted the eye of some of the best photographers in the world -- not to mention the fancy of two of rock 'n' roll's most iconic guitar heroes.

Today, though, Pattie Boyd feels most comfortable on the other side of camera. She's taken her passion for photography to a professional level, and is wrapping up a tour of five American cities this week with the Behind the Lens exhibit, presenting still and moving images while telling some of the stories behind her work.

It's the last part that the perpetually shy Boyd struggles to pull off, she admitted over the phone last week after sharing the stage at City Winery Nashville with award-winning rock photographer Henry Diltz on September 13.

"It was done really well," said Boyd, whose past exhibition experiences didn't require getting up in front of an audience to speak. "Everybody enjoyed it. My part was an hour but Henry likes to talk longer than me. I was a little nervous to say the least when we were in L.A. (at Largo for the first event). And then (in Nashville), I felt a little more confident, maybe because we were in the winery."

The classy venue even presented them with a bottle displaying a Behind the Lens la details

Being born in Liverpool I literally grew up on The Beatles. My mum and dad would have their songs on in the house 24/7 and when I hear the early stuff it really takes me back to being a kid. I admit I did fall out of love with them for a little while when I worked in terrible Elizabethan themed tea room in my home town of Brixham in Devon as a teenager. This was one of those situations, no doubt familiar to many where you work intensively in a place that has one CD that they play on repeat - forever. I admit even to this day if I hear 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' I feel physically sick AND get the strange urge to toast a teacake. I have the exact same situation with heavyweight Greek crooner Demis Roussos, there's one particular album of his that just makes me feel like I'm about to pass out and unusually incites me to prepare food for hungry tourists.

Anyway back to The Beatles, I've always felt like there's a strange impenetrability about the Liverpool legends, their songs are cherished cultural land marks that we've all grown up with and the general feeling is that the creative process should never be questioned. I've always suspected that if you were to mentioned in a Liverpool pub that you weren't that keen on the Be details

Western New Yorkers who tried to get Paul McCartney tickets but could not now have a reason.

Cyber scalpers used software knows as "bots" to buy virtually every ticket. It happened so fast, Congress is now taking action.

The tickets for the highly hyped show at First Niagara Center sold out in just three minutes. Scalpers and online hackers who used bots are now re-selling the tickets at sky-high prices. Schumer says new technology means software is able to trick systems that venues and legitimate ticket sellers use to keep bots out.

"Fans needed to be faster than a computer," says Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY). Schumer announced that he is introducing new legislation to the Senate that would make software acting as bots illegal. In addition, anyone selling tickets knowingly bought by bots would face a fine of $1,000 per ticket.

The senator says a similar version of the Bots Act has also been introduced into the House of Representatives. He says both bills have bipartisan support. "What this will do is stop the bots and online ticket sellers in their tracks," Schumer explains. "They sell a thousand tickets illegally -- that's a million dollar fine. They're not making that much money."

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Bermuda native Rosemary Jones recently released a full-colour guide to our island and its history dubbed Moon Bermuda, bringing together a wide variety of information that promises to familiarize readers with a range of knowledge pertinent to Bermuda, suitable for travel junkies, history buffs, and anyone with a taste for natural beauty.

Following below in an excerpt from the book that focuses on John Lennon’s visit to Bermuda in 1980:

Bermuda has reestablished a fascinating connection with John Lennon’s legacy. The former Beatle spent the final summer of his life on the island—a two-month sojourn in June and July 1980that’s been credited as a creative reawakening of the star who had stepped away from his career in 1975 to spend time raising his son Sean with Yoko Ono in New York.

Lennon sailed to Bermuda from Newport, Rhode Island, on a storm-wracked sailboat, landing in St. George’s before he rented a home in Fairylands, Pembroke. Ending a creative dry spell, he began to write again and during a visit to the Botanical Gardens, he was inspired by a flower bed sign bearing the fanciful name of a freesia—“Double Fantasy.”

The moniker would become the details

The Beatles - John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr - are widely regarded as the most influential act of the rock era. Here are their 17 UK Nos, in chronological order.

From Me To You: May 2,1963 (7 weeks at No 1). John Lennon and Paul McCartney began writing "From Me to You" while on a coach to Shrewsbury as part of the Beatles' tour with Helen Shapiro.

She Loves You: September 12, 1963 (6 weeks at No 1). Another Lennon-McCartney song, inspired by Bobby Rydell's song "Forget Him".

I Want To Hold Your Hand: December 12, 1963 (5 weeks at No 1). This Lennon-McCartney song had advance orders exceeding one million copies in the United Kingdom. A reluctant Capitol Records released the first Beatles record in the US on Janaury 13 1964, "to see how it goes". I Wanna Hold Your Hand became their fastest-selling single - one million copies were sold in the first three weeks

Can't Buy Me Love: April 2, 1964 (3 weeks at No 1). A Lennon-McCartney song written in Paris. Above, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison, take a fake blow from Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) while visiting the heavyweight contender at his training camp in Miami two months earlier.