Beatles News

 Paul McCartney has announced a 50th anniversary vinyl edition of his 1975 Wings album Venus and Mars.

The album was Wings’ fourth and the follow-up to their classic Band on the Run. Venus and Mars would reach number one on the album charts on both side of the Atlantic, going on to sell over four million copies worldwide.

Mostly recorded in New Orleans, this period would saw a change in the Wings lineup as McCartney would recruit guitarist Jimmy McCullough and replace short-lived drummer Geoff Britton midway through recording, with the more Macca-friendly Joe English. The album features fan favourite ‘Letting Go’ and hit single ‘Listen To What The Man Said’, which reached number one in the US singles chart.

The vinyl is half-speed mastered edition, cut by Miles Showell at Abbey Road and there’s no bonus material just a “meticulous reproduction” of the original UK pressing, with an OBI-strip. Venus and Mars will also be available– digitally only – in Dolby Atmos for the first time, having been newly mixed by Giles Martin details

This is FRESH AIR. Ringo Starr has released a new album of country songs called "Look Up." It's a collaboration with producer T Bone Burnett, who wrote many of the songs. And it features appearances by Alison Krauss and a new young bluegrass star, Billy Strings. Ringo recently taped a country special that will air on CBS in the spring, and in February, he'll make his debut at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry. Not bad for an 84-year-old ex-Beatle. Rock critic Ken Tucker has a review of "Look Up."

RINGO STARR: (Singing) It's a long way down and there's no bottom. You had the blues, but you forgot them. Look up. In the midnight hour, look up. Love is the higher power. Keep your eyes on the skies. Don't look down on the shadows town. Look up.

KEN TUCKER, BYLINE: Beatle fans have known of Ringo Starr's love of country music ever since he had The Fab Four cover the Buck Owens hit "Act Naturally" in 1965, singing a rare lead vocal. "Look Up" isn't even Ringo's first country album. That was way back in 1970. It was called "Beaucoup Of Blues" and was more self-conscious and lugubrious than the new one, which radiates the confidence and ease that an aging professional can bring to his material.

STARR: (Singing) Every ti details

Fans of George Harrison are calling his work on an unused How Do You Sleep take “the best playing he ever did”.

Post-The Beatles, John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote retaliatory songs against one another. Lennon’s How Do You Sleep was a response to McCartney’s Ram track, Too Many People. Harrison joined Lennon on How Do You Sleep, a song which featured on Imagine and was dubbed a personal jab at McCartney after the fallout of the Fab Four. McCartney had joked he was planning a follow-up, titled Quite Well, Thank You, but it never came to pass.

Fans of How Do You Sleep and Harrison are now saying an earlier take of the song hides one of his best performances as a guitarist. A post to The Beatles’ subreddit saw people share their fondness for his guitar playing on How Do You Sleep. One user wrote: “George’s guitar on How Do You Sleep (Takes 5 and 6) is some of the best playing he ever did.”

Another user agreed, adding: “Even on the official album version I’d agree with that statement. He had a lot of career moments where he shined as a guitarist but this is my number one.” A third suggested “everyone” was in top form on this &ld details

The Beatles dominated charts all around the world throughout the years the four musicians were together, and even many times following the split that shocked the human race. The Fab Four became superstars and rulers of the weekly rankings in the United Kingdom shortly after its first album dropped, and the band remains one of the most successful names to ever grace the charts. Now, one of The Beatles’ most impressive records has finally been matched by another one of the most beloved musicians of all time in the country.

Robbie Williams returns to No. 1 on the U.K. albums chart this week. The singer leads the charge on the list of the most-consumed full-lengths with Better Man, the soundtrack that accompanies the film of the same name.

The Better Man soundtrack earns Williams his milestone fifteenth leader on the U.K. albums ranking. As he snags one more champion, he matches The Beatles’ all-time record for the most No. 1s on the roster.

Before Better Man arrived, Williams was matched with another one of the most beloved rock bands, the Rolling Stones. That act is steady with its 14 No. 1s on the U.K. albums chart, though now that lands the stars in third place on the ranking of the most succ details

—Donald Trump compared himself on Monday to The Beatles and Elvis Presley while bragging about his fundraising prowess.

Speaking at his golf resort, the commander-in-chief told a cheering crowd of congressional and other supporters that he’s right on par with the British pop legends and the king of rock and roll.

And just as the Beatles drew throngs of screaming and crying fans, Trump’s telethon-style town halls were just as significant, he said.

“We get on, we have 25-30,000 people on, just in a congressional area, and they win easy,” Trump said. “It works for Elvis the Beatles, and it doesn’t work for anyone else—but it works for Trump.”

“Now we raised a lot of money, a tremendous amount, and our tele-town halls are something that’s very special that nobody else is able to even contemplate using,” he said. “We’ve gotten a lot of people elected with those tele-town halls.

The president has repeatedly compared himself to the King, including at a campaign stop in Tupelo, Mississippi, in 2018, when he said, “Other than the blond hair, when I was growing up they said I looked like Elvis. Can you believe details

All you need is luck — and maybe a stroke of fate.

That was the case in 1961 when one of Brian Epstein’s customers in the record department he managed at NEMS — his family store in Liverpool, England — asked for the single “My Bonnie” by The Beatles. It was, despite all his retail intel, the first instance that the Fab Four’s future manager had heard of the band.

Curious about the group that had recorded “My Bonnie” in Germany but turned out to be locals, Epstein saw The Beatles for the first time at Liverpool’s Cavern Club — where they played lunchtime concerts — on Nov. 9, 1961. The mind-blowing moment that would change his life — and pop music — is depicted in the new biopic “Midas Man,” which is streaming on Olyn.

“That day is the big bang,” Beatles historian Martin Lewis told The Post about Epstein’s culture-shifting discovery. “He had some kind of X-ray vision and X-ray hearing. He’s hearing it, and he’s looking at it, and he sees magic. These guys had something. It wasn’t just the music … it was the charisma, the presence, the energy. The Beatles had that details

Sam Mendes is reportedly under a lot of pressure to do justice to The Beatles movie.

According to the latest findings of Life & Style, “The cast is coming together and the world is watching.”

The musical band of 1960 comprised Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon, and George Harrison. The band released more than 200 songs between 1960 to 1970.

It is pertinent to mention here that Paul Mescal plays the role of Paul McCartney, Harris Dickinson plays John Lennon, Barry Keoghan plays Ringo Starr and Joseph Quinn plays George Harrison in the movie, which is slated to be released in 2027.

More importantly, the source mentioned, “But more importantly, the surviving controllers of the Beatles’ legacy are watching – Paul [McCartney], Yoko [Ono], Ringo [Starr] and Olivia Harrison.”

The insider also addressed, “Sony and Sam Mendes have one chance to get this right.”

Source: geo.tv

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While many factors contributed to the mega-group's demise, including creative differences, business disputes, and the inevitable erosion of camaraderie that often occurs among friends after years of intense, close contact, one of the most cited reasons for the break-up has been John Lennon's relationship with Yoko Ono.

The perception that Ono was controlling Lennon and manipulating him into making creative and practical decisions that served her own interests rather than his or the band's has persisted. Part of that also came from Lennon's decision to withdraw from public life almost entirely, taking a five-year hiatus, but Lennon's own assessment of that time reveals the truth of their relationship.
John Lennon "Retired" In 1975.  Between the birth of his son, Sean, on 9 October 1975, and October 1980, when he released "(Just Like) Starting Over" as a single, John Lennon essentially disappeared. History says he he "baked bread" and "looked after the baby", and his only musical activity was collaborating on "Cookin' (In the Kitchen of Love)" for Rino Starr's Ringo's Rotogravure (1976) as a writer and performer on the track. Looking back, it's been hard for some to accept that this hiatus didn't rob us of more details

John Lennon wrote and recorded the single “Instant Karma” in one day, at one point telling reporters he “wrote it for breakfast, recorded it for lunch, and we’re putting it out for dinner.”

The song, produced by Phil Spector, featured his Beatles bandmate George Harrison on acoustic guitar and piano, with Lennon’s wife Yoko Ono and Billy Preston contributing background vocals.

The inspiration for the tune came to Lennon during a visit he and Yoko took to Denmark, where they met up with Yoko’s former husband Tony Cox. Cox’s then wife Melinde Kendell used the term in conversation.

“Instant Karma,” Lennon’s third solo single, wound up being a hit for the rocker, peaking at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Source: kslx.com

Shortly after The Beatles split, John Lennon was publicly critical of Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. He dismissed their solo efforts and work in The Beatles. By the mid-1970s, Lennon’s attitude towards his former bandmates had softened considerably. Still, he wasn’t afraid to share his honest opinion when asked about a former Beatle’s music. He said one of Harrison’s concerts hadn’t impressed him.

In 1975, Lennon reflected on a recent Harrison concert he attended. It hadn’t impressed him.

“It wasn’t the greatest thing in history,” he told Rolling Stone. “The guy went through some kind of mill. It was probably his turn to get smacked.”

Harrison embarked on a 45-show tour of North America with Ravi Shankar in 1974. The critical reception was mixed, with many lambasting the shows. Lennon believed this was a part of the typical cycle of approval for the Beatles.

“When we were all toget details

The hangover from The Beatles‘ breakup was still stubbornly lingering in 1973. Legal proceedings entangling the principals were very much still in play. Fans of the Fab Four certainly couldn’t take for granted any sign of unity from the four band members.

All of which is to say the timing of the release of two greatest hits compilations, 1962-1966 and 1967-1970, couldn’t have been any better. The collections rose to the top of the charts and sparked a massive wave of nostalgia for the dearly missed group.

Oddly enough, the whole affair might not have happened were it not for someone trying to beat the group to the punch. A company based in New Jersey released a pair of four-disc collections in 1972 titled The Beatles Alpha/Omega. At the time, copyright laws weren’t nearly as strict as they are now, so the creators of these collections decided to roll the dice.

The song selection for these sets was quite haphazard, as it not only included some random Beatles tracks that were far from hits, but it also peppered in some solo Fab Four material as well. Sound quality wasn’t ideal, as the recordings were just pulled from existing LPs, rather than the group’s mast details

The Beatles are larger than life today, and it’s wild to think that the Fab Four from Liverpool ever had difficult beginnings. However, they were no different than any other ragtag group of musicians trying to make it big. They started out in the 1960s with the British Invasion movement on the up-and-up, and they managed to shine in a sea of other, similar rock bands. And one could say that it all started with The Beatles’ famed 1963 track, “Please Please Me”.

We probably have George Martin to thank for that. According to drummer Ringo Starr, nobody was willing to give them a chance at the beginning.

“I personally love George [Martin] because he gave us a shot at putting down on a piece of vinyl,” said Starr. “No one else would really have wanted to put us on the label.”

“Please Please Me” and the whole of the album of the same name saw The Beatles starting to figure out what their sound was. And the whole thing was quite rushed, unfortunately. That being said, even though they recorded more than a dozen tracks in a day (including “Please Please Me”), the result was a record that took Europe by storm. And eventually, it took North Am details

Paul McCartney nearly wrote a follow-up to John Lennon’s How Do You Sleep? at the height of the so-called song wars.

The former members of The Beatles spent time in the studio recording songs aimed at one another, with the back and forth coming to a head when Lennon released How Do You Sleep?, a song which featured on his 1971 album, Imagine. Lennon wrote it as an attack on his former bandmate after believing McCartney’s track Too Many People, which features on Ram, was aimed at him. George Harrison appears on How Do You Sleep?, playing slide guitar, and McCartney very nearly wrote a response to Lennon’s venomous song.

According to McCartney, who spoke on Ramming: The Making of Ram, a follow-up song was planned. McCartney also confirmed the title of his album, Ram, was related to “ramming on” after the break-up of The Beatles. He said: “I just hit upon the word ram. It’s strong, it’s a male, animal. And then there’s the idea of ramming. Pushing forward strongly. Very short, very succinct kind of title you wouldn’t forget. I was in the middle of this horrendous Beatles breakup and it was like being in quicksand.

“The lightbulb went off one details

The Beatles may have new songs with John Lennon coming thanks to new technology.

During an interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun, Dhani Harrison, son of George Harrison, revealed that a couple of songs by the Beatles, originally released in the 1990s, will be remixed using artificial intelligence to enhance John Lennon’s vocals.

Following Lennon’s tragic passing in 1980, the other members of the Beatles received demos of the songs from his wife Yoko Ono. Lennon had recorded the vocals and piano for the demos at his home before he died.

The surviving members added their vocals and instrumentation and released “Free As a Bird” and “Real Love” as new songs by the band.

They also worked on “Now And Then,” but decided to shelve the piece after finding Lennon’s vocals and the piano for the song could not be separated.

Later, AI made it possible for Lennon’s vocals to be isolated from the piano. Paul McCartney contributed bass and piano to the track and Ringo Starr added drums, while guitar by George Harrison was provided through a recording from the 1990s, before his death in 2001. “Now And Then” was released in 2023 as the Be details

Film director Kevin Macdonald and Co-Director/Editor Sam Rice-Edwards intriguingly slice together footage never seen before from the 18 months John Lennon and Yoko Ono lived in Greenwich Village. The film ‘One-To-One: John Lennon and Yoko Ono’ documents a tumultuous part of US history. Kevin Macdonald remarked: “People of the 70s, musicians were engaged in a way we should get back to.”
Historical footage documents history as it happened

“In the film there are interesting parallels between 1972 and where we are now,” notes Sam Rice-Edwards. “I didn’t know that much about Yoko when we started. For me it deepened my understanding. Getting into her head with the missing daughter, searching for her into the 90s.”

Hearing the stories told by Yoko Ono herself back in the 70s, provides insights rarely told. Did you know John Lennon went to the first feminist convention in Boston as the only man? The film shows the women voting on whether to throw him out.

Sean Ono Lennon oversaw the remastering of the audio. Much of the footage is from Lennon’s only full-length, post-Beatles concert. Yoko Ono, herself, did not participate in the making of this film details