Beatles News

After collaborating with the likes of Kanye West and Rihanna, Paul McCartney is continuing to work with a younger generation of influential artists. This time around he's teamed up with Lady Gaga and Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready for the soundtrack to a new animated feature he's producing titled High in the Clouds. The film is based off the children's book McCartney co-authored in 2005, and Macca will also voice one of the film's characters, Deadline reports.

Gaga hinted at the collaboration back in February, saying she was working in the studio with McCartney on an unspecified project.

"Had a beautiful session with Sir Paul McCartney and friends. Working on one of his many secret projects! Killer musicians, vibe, and lots of laughs," Gaga captioned a photo on Instagram of herself alongside McCartney, McCready and a room full of instrumentalists. "Always a good time with my buddy. I'll never forget when he called me last year to work and I hung up the phone cuz I thought it was a prank!"

By: Caitlin Carter

Source: Music Times

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All My Loving Review | Dir. Tony Palmer

“We met over a great deal of brown rice and he said, 'you have a duty’”, director Tony Palmer explains about an early encounter with The Beatles star, John Lennon, and so the blossoming of All My Loving began.

A film about pop in 1968, initially to be aired on the BBC after the epilog, hit London cinema screens again recently. “Everyone demands the existence of heroes...here in Liverpool were born four heroes, The Beatles”, an amusing Pathé news voice states. Offering conflicting views from within the industry, “If it sells, who cares” declares Eddie Rogers of Tin Pan Alley, while The Who’s Pete Townsend argues, “It's crucial it (pop music) should remain as art.” These stand points show that this doc is still tackling focal issues within the music industry some 40 years after it’s making, perhaps Paul McCartney's insight that “Pop music is the classical music of now”, is still relevant.

To say this is only the second film made by Palmer, it is an achievement, though you could be completely forgiven for thinking that it doesn’t do what it says on the tin. Less a documentary ab details

Collection of nonsense rhymes will be heard in full for the first time, 35 years after the former Beatle’s death.

Thirty-five years after his death, the first unabridged performance of John Lennon’s nonsense poetry will take place at the Edinburgh festival fringe after a crowdfunding campaign reached its target.

Backed by the musician’s widow, Yoko Ono, who said she might travel to Scotland to see the production later this summer, the new adaptation is the first time In His Own Write – Lennon’s wordplay-obsessed collection of nonsense rhymes and drawings – will have been performed since Lennon read extracts of it on television in 1964.

Baldynoggin Productions has cast three actors for the show, including director Jonathan Glew, who was responsible for getting permission to use In His Own Write from the Lennon estate. The estate, run by Ono, is notoriously careful about granting access to any of the Beatle’s works.

“I basically spent a week writing the best letter of my life,” Glew told the Financial Times. He said he had decided to go to the free fringe – where production companies are not charged for venue rental, provided they offer fr details

In his signature song for a little pop group from Liverpool, England, Ringo Starr warbled "I get by with a little help from my friends."

Well, those friends better be proficient in iCal and multitask scheduling because the diminutive Billy Shears is a little busy these days.

Starr, recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist (the last Beatle to be so honored), has released a new CD, "Postcards From Paradise." He's the face of both a new ad campaign for Skechers and his own #PeaceRocks social media movement. And he's headed back to the concert trail this fall with the latest version of the All Starr Band.

Did we mention that he turns 75 on July 7? And that he has, thanks to an insanely healthy lifestyle, plenty of boundless energy (as Houstonians saw firsthand last year during his gig at The Woodlands) and only a slightly higher body-fat percentage than, say, Gollum.

In the first major biography of the "funny Beatle" in nearly a quarter century, Michael Seth Starr (no relation) charts the life and career of the man born Richard Starkey.

The book separates Starr's life into three parts: pre-Beatles, Beatles and Post-Beatles. Readers learn that growing up, Starr - details

Sean Lennon recently gave an exclusive interview to the Humanity, the biannual publication of denim brand Citizens of Humanity, where discussed his inspirations (perhaps unsurprisingly, his famous parents John Lennon and Yoko Ono rank high on the list), his favorite Beatles songs, and what he thinks about Kanye West working alongside his father's former collaborator, Paul McCartney.

Lennon attributes his first musical efforts to the work of his prodigious father, but not in the way you might think -- “It’s not like I had the Beatles hanging out jamming in my house," he says. "When he died," he tells Humanity, "I remember feeling like there was sort of a vacuum that had been left. I used to just try to play the piano to connect with my idea of what I thought he was, being a musician and stuff. I think at first my inspiration came from just wanting to find some connection to my dad."

His mother, Yoko Ono, is equally inspiring as a musical collaborator. “She’s incredible in terms of her lyrical capability," he tells the magazine. "I mean she’ll write like 3 or 4 songs a day in the studio. That makes it really fun, so often we’ll make it up as we go along.” Lennon's favorite details

This week’s edition of Deep Beatles could be retitled “A Tale of Multiple Mixes.”

Originally intended for the Hard Day’s Night soundtrack, the Beatles’ “I Call Your Name” stands out for its cowbell-led percussion, unusual musical structure, and distinctive guitar solo. While omitted from the album due to its slight similarity to “You Can’t Do That” (chiefly its cowbell), “I Call Your Name” resurfaced on the Beatles’ 1964 UK EP Long Tall Sally and the U.S. Capitol release The Beatles’ Second Album. Today, it can be found on the Past Masters compilation.

John Lennon had been hanging on to “I Call Your Name” since the Beatles’ pre-Hamburg days, according to a 1980 Playboy interview. “That was my song. When there was no Beatles and no group, I just had it around,” he said. “It was my effort as a kind of blues originally, and then I wrote the middle-eight just to stick it in the album when it came out years later. The first part had been written before Hamburg even. It was one of my ‘first’ attempts at a song.” In a 1994 interview, Paul McCartney recalled helping Lennon revise the details

Yoko Ono is a towering figure in the twentieth-century art and music worlds. She was one of the main artists behind the Fluxus movement, and her performance and visual art and sound experiments had made her famous before she ever met her future husband, John Lennon of The Beatles. Lennon was a visual artist as well as a musician; his simple, spare and playful art was as accessible as any of his music and imbued with a similarly unique creative vision. Ono is now exhibiting some of Lennon's visual art at various art galleries around the country, including Fascination Street Fine Art, where special prints are for sale. We recently spoke with Ono about her late husband's artwork, its populist sensibility and the importance of giving.

Westword: You're displaying the art of John Lennon around the country. As someone who was involved in the avant-garde art world early on, including being part of the Fluxus movement, how would you say that John's work fits in with the history of art?

Yoko Ono: One day, a long, long time from now, maybe [it will fit in with the history of art]. Things go very fast, so I don't know when that's going to be. But I think John's work will be very highly rated because not one artist I see in details

Paul McCartney had been on the road for nearly a year when his Flowers in the Dirt tour finally touched down in Liverpool on June 28th, 1990. This was a special night since McCartney had been completely off the road since the final Wings trek in 1979, and this was his first show that centered around Beatles tunes. A humongous crowd showed up at King's Dock to watch the local hero and cameras were rolling for a television special.

The year also marked the 50th anniversary of John Lennon's birth, and McCartney wanted to do something memorable at the show to mark the occasion. "So much gets said about me and John," he said at the time. "And we had barneys [British slang for fights], plenty of barneys. I like the idea of putting that to rest by playing a small tribute to to him." 

He pulled that off by performing a long medley that incorporated "Strawberry Fields Forever," "Help!" and "Give Peace a Chance." It was the first time he'd ever played those songs live, and he picked them since they were quintessential Lennon tunes. "To me, 'Give Peace a Chance' is one of John's big statements to the world," McCartney said. "I'm not trying to make a saint out of him, but the Vietnam War was bought to a close by a mill details

When your band features a Beatle (George Harrison), a Heartbreaker (Tom Petty), The Bard (Bob Dylan), The Voice (Roy Orbison) and The Sound (Jeff Lynne), you're gonna be a pretty impressive outfit.

What's your favorite supergroup? There are plenty to choose from, to be sure.

Cream. Blind Faith. Derek and the Dominos. (OK, enough of the Eric Clapton groups.)

And there's Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The Highwaymen. Damn Yankees. Mad Season. Chickenfoot. Them Crooked Vultures. Velvet Revolver. Those are just the ones I can think of. There are certainly more.

My favorite? No question. The Traveling Wilburys.

When your band features a Beatle (George Harrison), a Heartbreaker (Tom Petty), The Bard (Bob Dylan), The Voice (Roy Orbison) and The Sound (Jeff Lynne), you're gonna be a pretty impressive outfit. If you've never heard the music of the Traveling Wilburys, take a few minutes and spend some time on YouTube. (I won't tell your bosses, colleagues or family members ... go ahead.) Let me know when you're done.

By: Chris Shields

Source: St. Cloud Times

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Global Beatles Day was founded, not with commercial purposes, but to commemorate their music and celebrate them collectively and individually. Even further tan Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison's magical tunes, The Beatles were huge on promoting peace and love, truth and youth, and most of all, the expansion of human consciousness. They explored the expansion of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, until they innovated and found new ways to make music. GBD is celebrated on June 25th because the hit song “All you need is love” was performed by The Beatles on the BBC produced program, Our World, on that same day in 1967.

In order to celebrate the four musicians, we’ve compiled a series of their greatest quotes; some of which made it into their song lyrics, and some others just went down in history.

“Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.” – John Lennon

“And, in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make.” – Paul McCartney

“It's all in the mind.” – George Harrison

“Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.” – John Lennon

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