Beatles News

In the sad sweepstakes for Worst Paul McCartney Solo Album, it would have taken a lot to zoom past the cutesy London Town, the self-conscious Driving Rain or the undercooked Wild Life — to say nothing of the synthy disaster that is McCartney II.

Paul McCartney got there with Press to Play, released on Aug. 25, 1986, an oh-so-typically-1980s Hugh Padgham-helmed “event” that stands as perhaps his least listenable offering. In some respects, you can blame the production values. Listen closely, and you might find the first frail flowerings of a creative rebound for Paul McCartney here — even if the old-man attitude seems a little heavy handed on tracks like “Angry.” But, more often, you’re stuck with things like “Good Times Coming/Feel the Sun,” which was as lightweight as anything on the second side of Wings albums like London Town and, maybe more particularly, Red Rose Speedway — since it too featured a series of half-finished ideas masquerading as a medley. “Talk More Talk” and “Pretty Little Head” are, even now, largely nonsensical.

Yet McCartney is, bless him, incapable of making a completely awful record. (Even McCartney II had details

It’S been called his finest moment since his work with Thomas The Tank Engine. Ringo Starr is back in the nation’s living rooms as the star of a new advertising campaign for… comfortable shoes. “Rock out in comfort” may be the kind of tagline that would have horrified the four lads who stormed the Cavern Club in 1960s Liverpool but at 75 it seems the former Beatle is perfectly happy endorsing a gentler kind of existence.

In the commercials for Skechers shoes Ringo is back behind his drum kit, hammering out a beat, before watching a young pretender attempt the same. After the final flourish the old master shakes his head. “Well,” he says in that famous Scouse drawl, “at least you got the shoes right, brother.”

As adverts go it’s actually rather good. Ringo looks great: fit, handsome and still retaining that deadpan charm that always made him the funniest and most likeable of the Fab Four. And Skechers are clearly delighted. “We are incredibly excited to be working with such an amazing world-renowned artist as Ringo Starr,” the company’s president Michael Greenberg said in a statement. “Ringo possesses charm, charisma and global r details

Blame it on the bottle, Harry Nilsson makes another phenomenal attempt to dismantle his own career. It had all been eccentric career moves and nonstop partying since “Without You” stunned the world and made him a star back in 1972. Bringing along ex-beatles John and Ringo (sometimes George and Paul stopped by as well) and a trail of thirsty celebrities (like Keith Moon) as cheerleaders, wasn’t the smartest thing to do, at least according to his doctor and his record company. RCA probably thought their star had gone insane. I don’t think “Son Of Dracula” (1974) is Mariah Carey’s favorite album (or movie), to put it that way.

“Pussy Cats” was born during John Lennon’s 18-month “lost weekend” in Los Angeles. Out on his own he turned into your drinking buddy from hell, having a lot of catching up to do. John and Harry triggered each other in their drunken stupors, feeding the gossip press with marvelous scandals. In between fistfights, heckling and being thrown out of night cubs with a sanitary pad on his head, John offered to produce Harry’s next album. Not surprisingly it turned into an open doors session, party time, drinks and drugs and a gall details

Rare Beatles memorabilia will be auctioned off in Liverpool this weekend – including sketches drawn by Paul McCartney which are expected to fetch over £10,000.

The drawings, which include Beatlesesque faces drawn in ink, have writing by Paul on the reverse and were discovered by the seller in an attic.

More than 300 lots are being auctioned at the Annual Beatles Memorabilia Auction, including Beatles trading cards, Beatles breakfast bowls, a Christmas card signed by Yoko Ono and an 800-piece jigsaw puzzle.

Four volumes of the Liverpool Daily Post and ECHO from 1962-64 are also included in the sale, for a guide price of £250-300. The auction will be held at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts on Saturday and is organised by Stephen Bailey, manager of The Beatles Shop in Mathew Street. He told the ECHO the sketches were “an amazing find”.

He said: “People usually think of John as the artistic Beatle but these drawings show Paul’s talent for capturing an image in a quick sketch. “Every year we’re just amazed by what goes in for auction and each year there’s something new that we’re surprised to see – it’s just fant details

The piano played by John Lennon during his last years in New York is currently making its way to Liverpool. It is expected to be put on display to the public at The Beatle’s Story museum in the city’s Albert Dock in time for the forthcoming Bank Holiday weekend’s music festivals.

The piano was used to record some of the last music John Lennon composed before he died at the hands of a gunman on December 8, 1980. According to Jack Douglas, an engineer who worked at the Record Plant Studio in New York at the time, it affectionately became known as “the John Lennon Piano” because he would move it to every studio he was working in. Lennon is said to have loved the piano’s honky tonk sound as it reminded him of early American Rock and Rhythm & Blues.

Originally a traditional upright made by the New England Piano company, it had been converted by inserting tacks into the hammers to give it a harpsichord-like percussive sound.

Not only can the piano be heard on Walls and Bridges and Double Fantasy but John Lennon also used it to compose songs with Elton John and David Bowie.

On the day he died, John Lennon spent many hours working at the piano on Walking On Thin Ic details

The Beatles were such talented songwriters that it’s easy to overlook the fact that their music has some great—and occasionally groundbreaking—guitar work.

With that in mind, Guitar World decided to celebrate the 10 best guitar moments from the band's hit-making history. In assembling this list, we looked beyond our personal favorite songs and reflected on where John Lennon, George Harrison and Paul McCartney showed their talents as guitarists, whether in a solo, a riff, a technique or by their astute selection of instrument and arrangement.

For some songs, we’ve gone a step further and analyzed the guitar work to give you insights into the magic that makes these moments so special. Enjoy! And be sure to share your thoughts in the comments below or on Facebook! If you'd like to delve much more deeply into this topic, be sure to check out The Fab 50: The Beatles' 50 Greatest Guitar Moments.

10. “Something” Abbey Road (1969) Ironically, while the Beatles were breaking apart in 1969, George Harrison was coming into his own as a songwriter and guitarist.

His Abbey Road contribution “Something” is among his finest songs, and his guitar playing here and t details

Four new statues of the Beatles are to be erected in Liverpool. The Cavern Club is paying £200,000 for the 8ft tall bronzes of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr and donating them to the city of their birth. They hope they will be installed on Liverpool’s iconic waterfront.

People will get the first glimpse of the statues, sculpted by Andrew Edwards, on Sunday at the annual International Beatleweek convention at the Adelphi hotel. Two – Lennon and McCartney – have already been cast, and the other two are currently modelled in resin and clay. The Cavern’s Bill Heckle said today: “When we saw them for the first time it was really emotional – I thought I was going to cry. “We just shook our heads. We knew it would be good, but not as good as that.”

There are nearly 30 Beatles statues and monuments all over the globe, from Spain to Cuba, and Ukraine to Kazakhstan. Houston in Texas has a set which are 36ft tall.

Jon Keats, from the Cavern, added: “We want this to be the ultimate Beatles statue, here in Liverpool.” Claire McColgan, Liverpool’s head of culture, said: “Hats off to the Cavern. They’ve all details

Fresh off an undeniably historic headline performance at this year's Lollapalooza hailed without exception as the biggest and best in the festival's 25 year history, Paul McCartney has confirmed another new North American arena date on the universally acclaimed Out There tour.

Paul will return to Columbus, OH nearly 10 years to the day since his last appearance in the Ohio capital city to headline the Nationwide Arena on October 13. October 17 will see Paul back at Toronto's Air Canada Centre for the first time since 2010 on the Up And Coming Tour.

NEW NORTH AMERICAN DATES CONFIRMED

October 13 - Columbus, Ohio - Nationwide Arena

October 17 - Toronto, Canada - Air Canada Centre

Having already torn through 22 shows this year covering Japan, South Korea, Europe, the UK and the US, the Out There tour, as always, features music from the most beloved catalog in popular music, spanning Paul's entire career - as a solo artist, member of Wings and of course as a Beatle. The set list also includes material from Paul's most recent studio album NEW, a global hit upon its release in 2013.

The McCartney live experience is a once in a lifetime opportunity: in just three hours some of the greates details

If he was an ordinary musician without the famous last name, the assortment of music projects keeping Sean Lennon busy right now (producer, band member, solo artist, environmental activist) might cry out creative restlessness or workaholic.

He’s co-produced the forthcoming album by Fat White Family, and he’s also working with members of the group on a side project, a new act called the Moonlandingz who have an EP out in October. It’s released on his label Chimera Music, a label started by Lennon and his girlfriend Charlotte Kemp Muhl, and he’ll head into the studio next month to help produce and play on a Moonlandingz record, with an EP planned for October.

Meanwhile, Lennon has also started writing new music for his and Muhl’s band (they play together under the moniker The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger), in addition to new songs for himself – a batch of tunes that, once he’s ready to put them out, will comprise his first solo album in almost a decade. As if that’s not enough, he’s collaborating with his mother Yoko Ono on a new album she’s releasing in January. Oh, and he’s directing a documentary spotlighting some of his friends who work as artis details

Paul McCartney has admitted that he feared for his own life after John Lennon was killed. The former Beatle said he was on "high alert" when Mark Chapman gunned down Lennon outside his New York home in 1980, but said his own house in rural south England was still largely unprotected and in a remote woodland location.

McCartney said he was left terrified days after the killing when he spotted several armed men advancing on the property.

McCartney told Uncut: "It was weird because in the days that followed it, I was sitting in the house. We had a little perimeter fence, mainly to keep foxes out, because we had some chickens. I'm aware of security threats, so I'm on high alert and I look out and I see someone with a fucking gun, like a machine gun, an assault rifle – 'Wha?!' He's in full military gear, and then I see there's a whole patrol of them. I'm going, 'Holy shit, what's going on?'." 

He added: "I don't know what I did. I think I rang the police. It turned out to be army manoeuvres. [They said] 'Oh, sorry. Are these your woods?' I'd put two and two together and made a thousand. God, I don't know how I lived through it. You think you'd just faint dead on the ground. But they were all t details