Beatles News

The ongoing slaughter of rhinos and elephants for the illegal trade in rhino horn and ivory is such frequent and terrible news that when good news arises, it is worth celebrating. That makes us happy to announce the naming of a baby Southern White Rhino at Kenya's Ol Pejeta Conservancy in honor of Ringo Starr.

So here's how a baby rhino comes to be named Ringo, and a little of what we hope that will accomplish. In January I was filming with the conservation teams at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, whose broad array of projects include a chimpanzee sanctuary established with Jane Goodall, armed anti-poaching teams and formidable K-9 units, and community partnerships that support local communities and enlist their help in the battle against poachers. Ol Pejeta is also home to the last three Northern White Rhinos in the world and the largest group of black rhinos in East Africa, 109 of the estimated 2,500 in the world.

While I was filming, I was introduced to a recently rescued southern white rhino who'd been found in late October at age 2 weeks, abandoned and barely alive. Now 3 months old, the quickly growing baby is cute, rambunctious and healthy, and seemed to me like the poster child of an entire species under details

You don’t just go and change Love, the Cirque du Soleil’s Beatles show.

If you want to even tinker with the phenomenally popular production, which has been packing the theatre at the Mirage hotel/casino in Las Vegas since 2006, you need to go to the source. So if you’re making some big changes, you most definitely have to run them all by the Fab Two and the representatives of the two Beatles no longer with us.

In a recent interview on a terrasse just outside the backstage of the Mirage theatre on the Strip in Vegas, Love director Dominic Champagne was talking about the major work that is going in to revamp this hit show. Champagne, who created the concept for the show with Cirque co-founder Gilles Ste-Croix, has been talking with others from the original creation for two years, and the team is now in Vegas busy making these changes.

The show is on hiatus for three weeks, and the refreshed Love will première on Feb. 25. But it will be what those in the live entertainment biz call a “soft opening.” In other words, they won’t have a big opening, but rather will continue to tinker with it in the months to come, in preparation for an official 10th-anniversary premi&e details

BBC Inside Out North West will tonight tell the story of Tony Booth, the man behind the first Beatles posters. When the Fab Four began to play at clubs around Liverpool, the main way fans found out about their gigs was through Booth’s posters.

The 82-year-old is still drawing and designing, and his posters have now become museum exhibits and collector items.

Tonight, BBC Inside Out North West tells how Booth was hired by Beatles manager Brian Epstein to help promote his artists.

He said: “I did most of the posters for the Liverpool area in the early 1960s – actually I must have done hundreds of them. “I used to be given carte blanche to change – what I wanted to do. I could put my own wording in – (like) I’d say The Fabulous Beatles which I often did.” 

Ray O’Brien, the author of the Beatles book ‘There Are Places I Remember’, said: “They’re one offs. Nobody can reproduce the work that Tony has done and people, fans from all over the world are just so pleased to get a copy of one of his posters – and it’s a little bit of history of course.” 

By: David Prior

Source: Prolific No details

The cousin of John Lennon, who had a close bond with the man considered to be one of the greatest musicians of all time, has died at the age of 82.

Largs has held the surprise connection with The Beatles going back to the early 1990s when Stan Parkes moved to Waterside Street, and gave talks to local groups including the Round Table and Rotary, about his famous cousin.

Stan was also in demand from national media, book authors, and fan groups from around the world, for his insight into the life of one of the greatest musical icons of all time. Stan was with John through the musical revolution of Beatlemania which has had such a lasting impact on popular music culture, and sat in on the recording sessions of the ‘Fab Four’, and his voice can even be heard in the background of some of the famous tracks.

Around 1994, Stan moved to Waterside Street, with his Largs born wife Jan, and stayed there for the rest of his days. John and Stan grew up in Liverpool, the sons of two sisters from a family where the women were very much in charge. Stan, who was seven years older, took young John under his wing, and they would often go out to the park, or the cinema together. As a younger man, Stan was sent to details

Forty-six years after they split, The Beatles are responsible for one in every 100 jobs in their home city of Liverpool. That was one of the standout statistics of the group's financial legacy released in a report this week. BBC News looks at the numbers behind the Fab Four.

Can't buy me love

A Liverpool City Council report found the enduring popularity of John Lennon, Sir Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr still supported some 2,335 jobs in the city.

Latest figures from the council show there are about 230,800 jobs in total in the city. So that means about 1 in every 100 jobs in Liverpool relies in some way on The Beatles. That is not bad for a band that broke up in 1970.

We can work it out

The £82m impact of The Beatles 1 in 100 jobs in Liverpool are connected with interest in The Beatles 2,335 roles sustained by Fab Four 230,800 jobs in total in Liverpool 1m to 2m visitors a year said The Beatles were why they came

This might, however, be an underestimate, according to Professor Richard Evans from Liverpool John Moores University, because the figures do not take into account the marketing value of the brand or the number of people staying at non Beatles-theme details

Did you know the Beatles performed full dress rehearsals when they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964, 52 years ago this month?

Not only did they perform them, but the producers of the show recorded at least one of them.

In the clip below, you can see the Beatles rehearsing for the show at the Deauville Hotel in Miami, Florida, on February 16, 1964. This video was posted on the Facebook account of Masayoshi Tanimoto, who writes, “This rare footage was not broadcast and can’t be seen on any officially released videos.”

This rehearsal was for the group’s second consecutive weekly appearance on the Sullivan show. They had appeared on the program one week earlier, on February 9, making their U.S. debut. That show was presented at the program’s usual location, CBS-TV Studio 50 on Broadway in New York City’s Theater District.

For the group’s second appearance, the show headed south to Miami’s Deauville Hotel. The Beatles arrived on Thursday, February 13, and rehearsals were held over the next two days. This full-dress rehearsal began at 2 p.m. on February 15. The show was presented live on Sunday, the 16th.

By: Christopher Scapelitt details

Paul McCartney is widely expected to headline and close the 2016 edition of music festival Pinkpop. Just days later, American rock legend Bruce Springsteen is set to perform in Den Haag.

McCartney is “99 percent certain” to perform at the Limburg event, according to local media outlet 1Limburg. A verbal agreement was reportedly reached between McCartney’s management and Pinkpop director Jan Smeets, the broadcaster reported.

The performance would likely close the three-day event in Landgraaf on June 12, just six days before McCartney’s 74th birthday.

Bruce Springsteen also announced a scheduled tour stop in the Netherlands. He will be joined by his E Street Band at Malieveld on June 14. Limited tickets for the show go on sale on February 12, at nearly 90 euros including service charge.

His last concert in the country, in 2013 at Goffertpark in Nijmegen, won praise from many critics for a heartfelt performance of nearly three and a half hours in length. He played 34 songs as the rain poured down, along with bandmates Steven van Zandt of the Sopranos and Max Weinberg of Late Night with Conan O’Brien.

By: Janene Pieters

Source: NL Times

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'Beat Bugs' will feature Eddie Vedder, P!nk, Sia, James Corden and others covering well-known songs by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

Netflix announced on Wednesday that it will premiere a new animated children's series this summer, featuring superstar covers of some of the most well-known Beatles songs.

Beat Bugs was created by Josh Wakely, who will direct, write and produce the series following a deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing for worldwide rights to record covers of the John Lennon/Paul McCartney "Northern Songs" catalogue, featuring some of the most well-known Beatles songs.

The series will incorporate songs from the Fab Four to tell uplifting and life-affirming stories. The tracks, woven into the narrative of each episode, will be covered by Sia, Eddie Vedder, P!nk, James Bay, The Shins, Of Monsters and Men, Chris Cornell, Regina Spektor, James Corden and Birdy, with additional artists joining the project set to be announced.

The songs featured include "Help!," "All You Need Is Love," "Come Together," "Penny Lane," "Yellow Submarine," "Lucy In the Sky with Diamonds," "Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "Magical Mystery Tour."

By: Hilary Lewis

Source: Holly details

Today, a collaboration has been announced between the world's most celebrated living musician and its foremost video chat and online communication platform: Paul McCartney and Skype have partnered to launch a new range of animated love themed Mojis for Valentine’s Day featuring exclusive new McCartney music coupled with Skype’s animated designs. This new set contains ten specially created Mojis.

Paul McCartney’s career is unparalleled. His music has reached hundreds of millions of people globally, spanning generations. Be it through live performances, composing pop songs, classical works, electronic music, film themes and scores, and most recently composing for the most anticipated video game of the last decade – 'Destiny', Paul has continued to explore new ways to reach people. Paul’s music brings people together and breaks down language and cultural barriers.

Mojis are short animated clips that you can use during Skype chats when words just aren’t enough. These Mojis will be completely unique to hundreds of millions of Skype users and feature sound as well as video, giving the users chat a whole new dimension. This collaboration will allow Skype users to use this medium to c details

Someone's about to go home with a piece of the original mop top.

Thirty-five years after his death, John Lennon is still a hot commodity. Beatles superfans can now bid on a chance to complete their Lennon shrines with a lock of hair from the legendary songwriter’s very own scalp.

The four-inch lock was cut almost 50 years ago on the set of How I Won the War, the only movie Lennon ever appeared in without playing himself. He played Musketeer Gripweed in the darkly comic war film, which came out just after the release of the landmark Beatles album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967. The movie also marked the first time he sported round glasses, which would go on to become synonymous with his name for the rest of his life.

In order to portray a military man, Lennon had to lose his trademark “mop top” in a dramatic (and now historical) haircut. The movie’s on-set hairdresser Klaus Baruck had a pretty good idea of just how valuable that hair would come to be, and kept a lock from the cut for five decades.

The hair is currently up for grabs to the tune of $12,000 on Heritage Auctions. The lot also includes a newspaper photo of Lennon getting his haircut, another details