Beatles News

LOS BANOS, Calif. (KGO) --A 5-year-old Los Banos boy had the opportunity of a lifetime recently to meet Ringo Starr. The little boy's name is King Tobias, and he lives and breathes Beatles music. But his story is about more than just the Beatles. It's a sovereign tale of survival, inspiration and love.

King has been listening to the fab four since he could barely walk. His mother Cali Tobias believes her son was 2 years old when he first heard a Beatles song on a CD. King listens to the Beatles music constantly on television, radio and CD's and even vinyl. And every nook and cranny of his room is covered in Beatles memorabilia. Cali says the fact that King can sing or listen to Beatles music at all is a miracle since he is the only survivor of a set of triplets. His mother says doctors had little hope King would make it. King not only survived, he's thrived. And he not only sings Beatles tunes, but four months ago he started learning to play Beatles songs.  
King's guitar instru details

Meg Wolitzer, 55, is the author of 10 novels, including "The Interestings" (Riverhead), now in paperback. She spoke with Marc Myers. My mother, Hilma Wolitzer, published her first short story in the Saturday Evening Post in 1966, and with her $1,250 payment she bought herself freedom—a white Rambler station wagon.

One day in 1967, as the family was driving to a diner in suburban New York, the Beatles' "Penny Lane" came on the radio. I remember shouting, in a staccato burst, for my mother and father and older sister to be quiet. Everyone politely listened to the song. To a 7-year-old, "Penny Lane" was a children's fantasy world. Even though the song was about adults—a barber, a banker, a fireman—they felt like little characters that fit inside my radio, and I wanted to go into that world and play with them. It was a world of bright oranges and yellows, far from the more muted tones of life in Syosset, N.Y., where I grew up.

details

Paul McCartney probably isn’t the first person you picture when you think Ibiza, the Spanish island known for its hard-partying ways. But when he had the chance to go on vacation thanks to doctor’s orders to rest, he and his wife headed straight there. “We didn’t exactly go clubbing, but there’s plenty of it about,” he told Rolling Stone in a new interview.

The Ibiza vacation didn’t last too long—McCartney’s currently on tour and isn’t planning on stopping anytime soon. “The answer to ‘Are you going to retire?’ is ‘When I feel like it,’” McCartney said. “But that’s not today.” On his Ibiza getaway: “So we went away to Ibiza. Obviously, there’s a lot of dance music there. We didn’t exactly go clubbing, but there’s plenty of it about. It’s in the air in that place. The house we rented didn’t have a good sound system, so I said, &ls details

Paul McCartney is the latest musician to experiment with the idea of albums as apps, following in the footsteps of Björk, Lady Gaga, Jay-Z and Snoop Lion. Five of his classic albums – Band on the Run, McCartney, McCartney II,RAM and Wings over America – have been turned into iPad apps by label Concord Music Group, and released through Apple's App Store.

Each app includes remastered audio tracks, interviews, rare photos, album and single artwork, and videos including rehearsal footage and documentaries. The new apps cost £5.49 each, which is less than the remastered albums cost from Apple's iTunes music store, where they sell for between £7.99 and £10.99. McCartney is one of a growing number of musicians exploring apps as a new, interactive format for albums, with Björk's Biophilia app in 2011 the first high-profile example. It turned songs from the Biophilia album into mini-games, interactive art and music creation tools. Originally released for Apple devices, the details

When Ron Howard was 9 years old, he was already a national television star on The Andy Griffith Show – and there was only one thing he wanted for his next birthday. "The gift that I was begging for was a Beatle wig," he tells Rolling Stone with a laugh. "And on March 1st, 1964, that's what I got: the Beatle wig of my dreams."

Now the Academy Award-winning director is coming full circle with his Fab Four obsession, having signed on to direct and produce an authorized, as-yet-untitled documentary about the touring years of the band’s career (approx. 1960-1966), a period in which the Beatles crossed the globe, sparked Beatlemania and released several classic albums (including A Hard Day’s Night and Rubber Soul). For it, he will interview surviving members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, as well as talk with Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison (wife of the late George Harrison).

details

Sir Paul McCartney has brought his first-ever guitar out of retirement for the video for his new single, Early Days. Macca can be seen in the video playing the Zenith Model 17 acoustic guitar, which is 58 years old and was the first guitar he ever owned.

According to the Mail Online, the instrument he plays in the video was worth just £15 when he chose it, when he traded in a trumpet his dad gave him for his 14th birthday in 1956. Previously, Macca had said of the trumpet: "I used to play it a little bit. That was the hero instrument then, but it became clear to me fairly quickly that you couldn't sing with a trumpet stuck in your mouth." He also said of his initial difficulties playing the guitar: "I didn't realise it was because I was left-handed. It wasn't until I saw a picture of Slim Whitman, who was also left-handed, and I saw that I had the guitar the wrong way round." The Zenith was used by Paul on the Beatles' first trip to Hamburg, and he composed his first song on it, I Lost My Little Girl.

Listen to the Audio Version of this News details

The Beatles have one of the smallest vocabularies in pop music according to a new poll analysing song lyrics. The Fab Four used just 688 words in their first three albums compared to 1890 used by Elvis Costello and 1748 by David Bowie.

'Love' really is all they needed though, with John Lennon and Paul McCartney using the word 151 times - the most for any artists in the poll. The poll showed bands in Wales had the biggest vocabulary, using an average of 1316 different words across their first three albums with The Manic Street Preachers displaying the greatest lyrical prowess by using 2056 unique words, the largest number for any band in the poll. Britpop bands liked to keep it simple, with acts that started their careers in the 1990s using an average of 31.6 unique words per song, down from the 37 that were used by bands in the 1970s and the 1980s.

Listen to the Audio Version of this News Story  details

The entertainer worked at the music venue as a coat check girl in the 1960s so she could see bands such as The Beatles. But Black (71) has been forced to have a hearing aid surgically implanted because of the damage to her ears.

She told The Mail on Sunday: "I blame the Cavern. All those years in a place with no proper acoustics, I think it may have done some damage. "It's no fun getting older. I might be wearing beautiful diamond earrings but they can't take away the pain of losing my hearing. "I didn't actually realise how bad it had got until I was with a friend in Barbados and I said to her, 'Why are you whispering?' She said, "Cilla, I'm not whispering, it's you who has a hearing problem'. "It's rock 'n' roll that has done my hearing in. I went to the Cool Britannia party at 10 Downing Street and a well-known rocker came up to me and said something and I said, 'I can't hear you'. He replied, 'I can't hear either'. He pointed out his hearing aid and told me to get one."

Listen to the Audio Version of this News Story  details