Beatles News

It’s been 50 years since screaming fans watched The Beatles perform on Liverpool’s Town Hall balcony.

When the Fab Four returned home for the northern premier of A Hard Day’s Night, thousands lined the streets on July 10, 1964 to watch John Lennon, Paul McCartney , Ringo Starr and George Harrison.

Half a century on, their music is still played around the world, but how well do you know their lyrics?

Take the Quiz Here

TRIBUTES have been paid to The Undertakers’ guitarist Geoff Nugent who has died. He passed away yesterday at the age of 71.

The Merseycats rock ‘n’ roll charity posted Mr Nugent’s photograph on their website with the words “too old to rock, too young to die”, describing him as “a great loss to the music scene on Merseyside”.

Meanwhile among the many tributes paid online was one from Ian McNabb who wrote “saddened to hear of the loss of the great Geoff Nugent. Thoughts with his family and friends. we have lots another great. Sleep well brother”, while the Merseyside branch of performers’ union Equity said: “So sad to hear of the death of a great Merseybeat legend and Equity member Geoff Nugent. An amazing musician and great guy.”

Mr Nugent was born in Liverpool in February 1943 within a couple of days of future Beatle George Harrison, and the two were childhood friends growing up in Speke, where they learned to play the guitar together.

The Undertakers were originally called Bo details

Paul is set to return to South America this November. In April of this year Paul performed his first concerts of 2014 in Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Costa Rica. Today Paul has confirmed that he’ll be taking his tour back to Brazil this November.

Paul launched his critically acclaimed ‘Out There’ tour in Brazil last year with historic concerts in Belo Horizonte, Goiânia and Fortaleza. Since then the tour has visited almost 40 cities across South America, Europe, North America and Japan. In August the tour made headlines around the world when Paul performed the last ever concert at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park, which was the same venue that The Beatles’ last ever concert took place in August 1966.

Paul’s first ever concert in Brazil smashed box office attendance records and gained him entry into the Guinness Book of World Records for Largest Concert Audience. Over 184,000 came to see him in Rio de Janeiro’s Maracanã Stadium that night in 1990 and since then, Paul has performed in Bra details

The world is full of geeks and snobs ready to talk too much about their personal passion for wine, for scuba diving, for vampire literature. You know the type.

This is nothing like that.

This is an exploration of the Beatles, and why the recent rerelease of their albums in the mono format on vinyl, the way many fans heard the records in the 1960s, is worth celebrating.

OK, so maybe there is some obsessiveness to this tale, but there is broader cultural significance too.

The music of the Beatles is timeless. Not only were they master songwriters, they were visionary artists who pushed the era’s recording technology and hidebound engineers to create new sounds.

The result is music that is still vital and interesting more than 40 years later. Consider the elegiac beauty of “Eleanor Rigby,” or the psychedelic drone of “Tomorrow Never Knows” with its tape loops that sound like sea gulls. Play a Beatles CD, especially one from their mid- or later-period, starting with 1965’s “Rubber Soul,&rdqu details

Today, the 1983 Motown 25 concert, broadcast in prime time on NBC, is best remembered for Michael Jackson's moonwalk. The show, however, involved much more: Host Richard Pryor introduced label legends like Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinsonand the Four Tops at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, and the Jackson 5 and the Supremes both reunited.

Of course, there was even more going on behind the scenes, and the new Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever DVD set (available with one, three or six discs) is looking to excavate some of that history, adding rehearsals, roundtables and documentaries to the original footage. Follow the link below to  watch a clip from one of the docs, in which Robinson, the Temptations' Otis Williams and author Nelson George discuss the symbiotic relationship between Motown and the Beatles.

"They were the first huge white act to admit, 'Hey we grew up with some black music. We love this," says Robinson.

Adds Williams: "We knocked down those barriers, and I must give credit to the Beatles. . .It seemed like details

A CAMPAIGN to keep St Luke's church in use as a cultural venue for the Liverpool community has received Beatle backing. Sir Paul McCartney today joined John Lennnon's widow, Yoko Ono, in calling for the bombed out church, on Leece Street, to remain open "for the use of the people and run by the people" and praised the work carried out there. A huge question mark has hung over the future of the church since March this year when Mayor Joe Anderson announced his intention tosell it for £1 and invited expressions of interest from bidders. Developer Lawrence Kenwright, who owns the Signature Living apartments and the newly-opened 30 James Street hotel in the former White Star builidng, quickly stepped in with a plans to turn the church, which was bombed by the Luftwaffe in World War II, into a wedding hotel and venue.

The move caused a public outcry and was then dropped. Mayor Anderson later performed a U-turn, announcing that the church would, in fact, remain in council ownership. Nevertheless, its fate, who will be its long term caretaker an details

Bluewater Productions has created a biographical comic book profiling legendary musician and songwriter, John Lennon. Writer Marc Shapiro had this statement in the press release: “I approached writing Tribute: John Lennon as an exploration of a life full of potential and promise that was, sadly, cut short. We all know the importance of John Lennon as part of The Beatles. But I felt it was more important to concentrate on his post Beatles’ life and career, both good and bad, so that readers would get the clearest possible idea about who he was as a creative entity, husband and father.”

This new project, part of the Tribute series, features interior artwork by Luciano Kars and cover art by Graham Hill. Other recording artists who have been featured in this series include Queen lead vocalist Freddie Mercury,Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, and more.

Read more on this details